Ultraviolet
by Daniisreallyreallywierd
Summary: Six years later, Violet's become a new Super on the block. But with heroes come villains, new and otherwise, and one's about to take Violet on a trip she'd prefer not to go on. Synlet. Two chapters left.
1. Showtime

AN: So. This is a new story that's been bouncing around my head since about chapter two of When The Day Met The Night. I've revised the plot many times and have finally decided what's going to happen, and I just got around to typing chapter one. It's going to have lengthier chapters than most of my stories, but it'll be nothing compared to most of the Synlet writers around... but yeah. Anyway. I don't own The Incredibles, no matter how much I wish that I did. Otherwise there would be a sequel. Maybe it would go something like this.

* * *

Violet found herself on her hands and knees, breathing heavily.

"You passed," her mother said, similarly out of breath. "Go on to the next room, E's waiting for you."

Violet stood and smiled weakly at the woman who had raised her to be the hero she now was, standing triumphantly, having passed the test that allowed her to be considered an individual Super. She turned the doorknob and found the old friend of the Parrs waiting on the other side. "Dahling, you've just gone through probably the vhorst training you'll ever experience, and you still look mahvelous."

"Thanks, E," Violet replied, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "Now what…?"

"You vhill see," Edna replied with a grin. She led the young Super through a hallway into another room. "Since you passed zhe test, you get a special somezhing from me in addition to everyzhing you'll be getting from your family." She presented Violet with a small bundle of clothing, deep purple and white visible on the Supersuit Violet had just been handed. "Zhis signifies your independence from your family, and it looks much better on you, dahling."

"Thanks!" Violet replied happily. Edna showed her to a changing room, where Violet began putting on the costume to show her family.

"Have you thought of a new Super name?" Edna asked. "You can't go on as Incredigirl anymore, you're on your own now."

"Erm," Violet started, having some difficulty with one of the stark-white boots, "give me a minute."

"You haven't thought of anyzhing?" Edna asked, aghast.

"Yeah, I did, but I'm having a little trouble here." She fell to the ground and finally jerked the boot on. Grabbing her indigo mask and placing it over her eyes, she unlocked the door and stepped out. "It's..."

---

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the latest up-and-coming superhero, Ultraviolet!"

Cheers erupted as Violet pushed her way out from behind a curtain to join her family. She had butterflies in her stomach, but when she saw the sheer amount of reporters there, they turned to dragons. She'd seen how some of the first Supers had gotten absolutely mauled by the paparazzi.

A reporter in the front row grabbed her attention. "How do you feel about the new system for nemeses?"

Violet stepped up to the podium and removed the microphone, which proceeded to squeal loudly with feedback. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. That had been a bad first impression.

"I don't know how well it'll work, since villains have a completely different code than heroes and I'm not familiar with it. Hopefully it'll work out. I'm fond of the idea, though. That way no single Super feels obligated to save the whole city from multiple villains at once."

"Have you thought about getting a nemesis?"

"Not really. I only want one if they did something to make me really mad, and so far only one's done that."  
"Why not them?"

"Well, first off, last time I checked he was dead. He kind of attacked my whole family, too, and he's got a grudge against my dad, not me. So I don't think he'd want to be my personal nemesis anyway. So unless he's somehow alive and approaches me about it, I won't have one for a while."

Violet smiled into the crowd. This wasn't as hard as it looked.

The rest of the questions following the ceremony were all ones pertaining to the revised code for Supers- what she thought of the "only kill when necessary" clause, how she was planning to avoid damaging buildings, things she breezed through.

Topics concerning the new code were also painstakingly boring to listen to in the eyes of Buddy Pine.

As Ultraviolet and the rest of the family disappeared behind the curtain again, the supervillain yawned and changed the channel.

Being the daughter of Mr. Incredible, the biggest Golden Age superhero almost anyone could think of, Ultraviolet's coming of age had to be televised. Unless she wanted her secret identity to go public, that is. The paparazzi were very "convincing". Some villains took it up in order to have an excuse to find out secrets and spread them around.

Syndrome snorted. Amateurs.

He continued to flip through channels, only half paying attention to what was on. He knew for a fact that Mr. Incredible didn't take personal nemeses and the whole family… taking them on all at once would be the mark of an idiot. Syndrome was _not _an idiot.

Violet would be a good target, after all, he knew almost everything about her from years of watching planted surveillance cameras. Besides, she could help him get to her father. If he killed, kidnapped, mauled, or probably even _touched_ Violet… he would have an angry Bob Parr on his hands.

And he was okay with that. One on one, the old man didn't stand a chance.

The phone rang and the supervillain stood to pick it up.

"So, Syndrome. When can I expect you to come down?"

---

Violet-or more accurately, Ultraviolet-gazed down on the city from her building perch. It was her first patrol… she wasn't sure what to expect. Her mother had told her to be ready for anything.

Violet hadn't completely heeded Helen's advice, however, as nothing could prepare her for what happened next.

She felt a tap on her shoulder, then jumped and turned around in her fighting stance.

Then she realized she was face to face with Syndrome.

The next thing she knew, she was falling. Violet didn't want her first patrol to be her last, and formed a forcefield around herself as she fell.

The antigravity softened the fall, and she kept the forcefield around herself while she formed another wedge shaped one under the field.

The wedge turned at Violet's direction, shooting Violet and her main forcefield upward like a pinball. When she was at a suitable height, she terminated the circular one and made a sloping one beneath her that she slid down back onto the rooftop.

The villain smirked and asked, "Having fun?" before being slapped.

"Don't DO that!" Violet hissed.

Syndrome shrugged. "Not my fault you fell."

"You pushed me!"

"No, you jumped back in surprise. Now listen. I saw your schpiel on TV, and I want to make an offer."

Just in case, Violet quickly sized up her current enemy. He looked about the same physically, with the same insanely high hair and piercing blue eyes. He was wearing casual clothes, however, and also had a watch on his wrist.

"Why were you watching?" she asked skeptically.

"I like to keep myself up-to-date on those things, you know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer?"

"So. Let me guess. You want to be my nemesis?"

"Exactly."

"So you can get revenge on my father, I'm guessing."

"Maybe, maybe not. You're interesting enough on your own."

"Why would you find me interesting?"

"You just are. Oh, before it slips my mind- why did you and Tony break up? I must've missed that."

"_What?!"_

"Was he just a high school crush? Or was he too oblivious and boring? He looked like he had the personality of a garden hose, and probably the same mental capacity-"

Violet grabbed the redhead roughly by the shirt. "Tony was a great boyfriend. He was understanding and nice, and he never once yelled at me for missing a date. Our relationship was wonderful while it lasted, but it just wasn't meant to be permanent. We grew apart. And HOW did you know about that anyway?" she growled.

Syndrome pushed her hands away. "It's none of your business." Stepping back, he paused momentarily, then continued. "So. Am I your nemesis, or do I have to tell those poor reporters that Ultraviolet is a liar?"

"You wouldn't."

Syndrome grinned arrogantly. "I would and you know it. Blackmail is smiled upon in the world of villainy."

"You're horrible."

"Not as horrible as your father."

Violet sighed. "FINE. But only so I can kick your butt on a daily basis."

"That's the point," Syndrome said, then grinned. "You'd better be ready. I've got about three new tricks up my sleeve already."

"The last time I heard that was when I was fighting a half-baked magician who thought he was a worthwhile villain."

"Well." The redhead looked at his watch. "Hate to break up this reunion here, but I gotta go. I have things to do, inventions to build, money to make. So. You'll be seeing the new and improved Syndrome within the week. Just so you know, I won't be holding back. I would love nothing more than to crush someone who is not only a snotty newbie hero, but an Incredible to boot."

Syndrome's rocket boots activated, and he hovered several feet above the roof.

"Au revoir, Ultraviolet," he said, and was gone.

Violet's world stood still for a moment before she heard an alarm go off and police sirens blare.

As she jumped from the rooftop, a lavender forcefield already surrounding her, she muttered a single word under her breath with a smile.

"Showtime."

* * *

End Note: Updates could take a bit, as I'm trying to juggle this and my oneshot-turned-story. But luckily I've already got both of them plotted out so it should be smooth sailing from here... I hope.

Hope everyone had a happy Synlet month. :D

-Dani


	2. Brilliant

AN: This is taking much longer than I anticipated. Thank you to the people who review, you make my world go 'round especially when you point out what needs work. Sometimes I forget to explain things *cough the entire nemesis system cough* so I add said things where they fit to later chapters and then everything makes sense again. ^_^ The nemesis system as well as a little bit of the villain code is explained here. Chapter Three will shed some light on Violet's bizarro reactions. Sorry about that. ^-^;; And sorry about my severe comma abuse. Also, thank you to all my international readers! You make me feel special. Oh, and for anyone who doesn't know, Xerek is the guy who was originally going to be the villain of The Incredibles... but Syndrome was just that awesome. Anyway, The Incredibles isn't mine and neither is The Dark Knight which is quoted, but they are both great movies that start with the word "the." I love articles.

* * *

Ultraviolet was exhausted.

When Syndrome had told her that he wasn't holding back, he hadn't been kidding- at least with the frequency of his plots. The onslaught of mechanical menaces had nearly brought the Super to her knees. It almost seemed as though he never slept, as his attacks practically went around the clock. And when Syndrome wasn't sleeping, neither could Violet.

Violet woke up Friday morning to a comforting silence. All the rest of the week, she'd awoken to crashes and screaming, the sounds of destruction... but this morning had greeted her with bright, cheery sunshine and no demolition to be found. The air was peaceful and quiet, and Violet took the opportunity to get dressed slowly and make herself some decaf. She was immensely glad that the NSA paid heroes to save the day, as it cut back on costs for the city and made the lives of Supers much easier since they made enough to live without a second job. As it was, the Incredibles had needed Ultraviolet to be on her own and saving the day as soon as possible due to the hero shortage, and thus she'd only had a short stint with a NSA-sponsored community college in terms of her extended education. Violet would've liked to have gone to school more, but there were also people to save. As most Supers did, Violet put the needs of the many above her own desires, and here she was, waiting for a deafening crash outside her window to signal another of her nemesis's attacks.

About halfway through the cup, Violet's "danger sense" went off. Better known as a Super's sixth sense (or seventh in some cases), the sense warned Supers that something dangerous, usually a villain, was heading their way. Violet had found that many people were missing that sense or had grown so used to it that it no longer functioned. One of those people was her father. The Golden Age had been so laden with crime that he rarely had a moment's rest and had thus no longer could tell the difference. Elastigirl had a slightly less severe "saving people complex", and thus hers still functioned when her children were in danger.

This feeling was particularly strong, and Violet quickly got ready and finished her coffee. On her way out the door, she realized she'd almost forgotten her mask. Grabbing the purple accessory and dashing back out the door, Ultraviolet rushed toward the area where her nemesis was probably attacking.

The streets were surprisingly clear for late-morning Metroville, but Violet didn't need to travel far to find Syndrome anyway, as his architectural carnage was obvious. Apparently he and the concept of the Omnidroid had made amends, as he was wreaking havoc with something that looked very similar to the one her family had faced. Of course, he was also controlling it from atop the roof of a building, so maybe he'd just decided to take more precautions and disable the artifical intelligence.

Ultraviolet severely hoped not. The Omnidroid was easier to confound than it would seem, but Syndrome himself was a brilliant tactician in fights as she'd found out in the past week.

The heroine took the elevator to the roof of the building to find Syndrome sitting near the edge, engrossed in his destruction. She noted how close he was to the ledge, and how easy it would be to just push him off. Violet quickly shook these thoughts out of her head. _No killing,_ she reminded herself, _not even him. Two wrongs don't make a right. Besides, if you ever need to come to someone smart for help, he's obligated to do it since he's officially your nemesis and villains really find that whole hero/villain teamup thing ironically funny._

Even while he was nearing thirty, he still acted like a kid; or at least when he wasn't being a manipulative, sadistic supervillain. Ultraviolet was extremely peeved at her nemesis for throwing off her sleeping habits, and began to shout at him.

"Do you have ANY idea how long you've been keeping me up with these plots of yours? I've got half a mind to just call up Mr. Incredible and have him take you on just so you'll knock it off!"

The redhead pressed a button on the controller and set it aside as he stretched. The Omnidroid kept moving without the direction of the device, and Ultraviolet smirked inwardly. It still had artificial intelligence.

"Ah, Ultraviolet. So we meet again."

"For the eleventh time in three days! Haven't you ever heard of moderation?"

"I didn't know you were keeping track," Syndrome replied with a cocky grin.

Ultraviolet rolled her eyes. "So. Why the Omnidroid? Don't you learn from your mistakes?" The Super inched toward the control, hoping to get him on a monologue.

"It's not programmed the same," he snapped. "It only functions on its own when I allow it to, and even then it won't attack me."

"Unless it has a severe malfunction," the hero said under her breath, then continued with her attempt to get him to rant. "You never explained why the parts of your costume that used to be white are silver now, either. Everything's the same except for that color change. What's with that?"

"I don't plan to tell you any time soon." Syndrome stepped in front of the control and advanced on Ultraviolet, who took a step back.

"Why haven't you killed me yet? You could've easily done so at any given time, from what I know of the villain code-"

"You don't know how this 'nemesis' thing works at all, do you?"

"Do I look like a villain to you?"

"You could if you were a little more angry," he remarked with a smirk, then continued. "There's a no-kill clause on both sides of the issue when one's nemesis is involved. I pretty much had to follow the code, seeing as I wanted to be your official nemesis. If I hadn't done it officially, some newbie villain could just come along and bring you to your knees, and I can't let that happen."

"Why? Is it because I'm an Incredible and you're a genocidal maniac?"

Syndrome grinned. "Kind of. You've got more of a history with me than any other villain, and yes, you're an Incredible. I want to have the title of 'The Only One Allowed To Defeat You.' I also had to follow the code because I helped write it."

"You wrote the villain code." Ultraviolet stared at her nemesis. Despite her parents and Frozone all being major contributors to the Code of Heroes, she somehow hadn't expected Syndrome to have anything to do with an organized way for villains to act. It didn't seem very... likely. From what she could tell, her nemesis preferred the ways of chaos, and any organized manner of behavior seemed odd.

"Well, it was Xerek and I and a few others. Anyway, one of the most major rules of the code is to not specifically go after your nemesis. There's an entire section dedicated to it."

"Why wouldn't a villain want to kill their greatest enemy?"

"To villains like me, who pursue this type of villainy for fun and not profit, a nemesis is not someone we want to kill. Enemy isn't a good word to describe it: more like arch-rival. When we declare nemesis status, we're not saying 'watch your back, because as soon as you turn it you'll be dead in a heartbeat.' We're saying 'you'd better be ready to save the day, because I'm going to try and unfurl my plot and I expect you to stop me.' A nemesis is our foil, our reason for existence and villainy. As one of my role models once said, 'You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won't kill you because you're just too much fun.' Without you heroes saving the day, putting it in danger would quickly lose its appeal."

Ultraviolet looked up. She'd been so focused on his reasoning that she hadn't noticed their proximity. The Super stepped back, but her nemesis only walked forward in response. "Makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?"

"If it did, why would I tell you?" The heroine formed a shimmering violet force field around herself and headed toward the controller. As she did so, however, Syndrome began to shake his head frantically. "That's not a good idea..."

"Wh- AAH!" Ultraviolet screamed as the Omnidroid brought one of its mechanical appendages down on her forcefield. It had apparently climbed the building and was now gunning for the hero trying to control it. The building groaned with the weight of the robot and swayed slightly.

The Omnidroid attacked her forcefield until it gave way, and she blacked out momentarily. When she regained consciousness, she found herself moving through the building's debris, though she didn't know which way she was heading.

Suddenly she was out of the wreckage, floating above it all. There were arms around her waist, and she frowned. "Why did you save me?"

"Wreaking havoc would be boring without a foil. I said that already."

"Then you may want to knock it off for a while. I'm sleep deprived..."

"I'll give you a week to recuperate, and then I'll figure something out. Right now we need to shut it down... the controller is gone and there isn't an alternate one."

"You never learn, do you?" Ultraviolet asked with a frown. "How are we supposed to beat it? I'm not all of my family in one handy package, you know."

"There is one way." Syndrome flew in close to the Omnidroid.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?" Ultraviolet shrieked, but Syndrome shushed her. "It won't hurt me, I already said that." The villain shot a small bolt of zero-point energy into a barely visible hole on the robot, and a sizable hole opened up in the side, large enough for Ultraviolet to slide in.

"Get in there and do whatever you think you'll need to in order to shut it down. If you can, keep the outer layer intact. Please."

Ultraviolet smirked and rolled her eyes as she climbed into the hole. "Right."

Syndrome backed away from the machine as loud clunking noises and shouting from the heroine reverberated from inside of it. The inventor winced at the sound of his creation's destruction, but it was necessary for his plan. Soon, Ultraviolet would be his for the taking, and-

Syndrome's scheming was rudely interrupted by the communicator located on his gauntlet's incessant beeping.

"I'm kind of busy right now!" he shouted at whoever was calling him over the ruckus.

"Your time free is running low," a voice replied darkly from the other end.

"Right," the villain replied, disbelieving. "I know it's you, Cara, and you don't run my life."

"Not yet, but I will soon," the girl replied, and apparently hung up.

"Who was that?" Ultraviolet asked, her hair slightly frizzy and her outfit stained with what appeared to be oil as she exited the quickly malfunctioning robot. Syndrome pulled her out and backed away as he rolled his eyes. "When did it become your business?"

"Around the same time Tony became yours," Ultraviolet spat.

"Fair enough," he replied as they landed. "That was an old friend who's not so friendly anymore." Syndrome's stomach growled. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to get something to eat." Within a second of his rocket boots activating again, he slammed into a panel of violet light.

"You're not going anywhere until you start explaining."

Syndrome glared at the former Incredible. "I don't think I'm the one that needs to explain."

"What do you mean?" Ultraviolet asked, frowning.

"I'm the first villain you ever helped defeat. I'm a huge menace, and I could easily plot to harm you, even kill you... why haven't you even made an ATTEMPT on my life? You could've and should've when we first met again or any time after that."

"One, you're part of my past, I can't just kill you; and two, unlike you, I have morals."

"Oh, I have morals," Syndrome retorted. "You've just never seen them."

"Okay, well. You and your invisible morals are going to stay here and answer my questions-"

"Oh, I know what it is. You're afraid, is that it? You could kill me if your fear didn't overcome you. You don't want to make an attempt on my life for fear you'll fail and I'll go after your family. You're very good at hiding it, but not good enough."

Syndrome never finished his 'psychoanalysis' of Ultraviolet, as she leapt nimbly, furiously at the supervillain. Before he could even think to react, she had knocked him down and punched him in the face.

"Ow! Hey- stop! Agh!"

"I HATE YOU!" she screamed as she punched him again and again. "You think you're always right and you just don't understand like you think you do!"

"AGH!" the inventor yelped as his nose began to bleed.

"That's what you deserve." Syndrome touched his nose gingerly as Ultraviolet got up to leave. Before she got more than a few steps, he had frozen her with zero-point energy.

"I don't think I'm always right, I just usually am. Maybe this time I was wrong, seeing as you seemed completely willing to hurt, even maim me when I said you were afraid of me. But at the same time, you also tried to make me shut up when I was revealing one of your flaws. I would suggest not doing that again, or I'll consider breaking the code. Now run along, I have other things to do." With this final comment, Syndrome tossed Ultraviolet in the direction she came and flew off.

"Ugh," the hero groaned, her costume grimy and her confidence deflated. "What an a- what's this thing?" Ultraviolet halted mid-curse and examined the small, laminated piece of paper she'd discovered between her main costume and her belt. It was something like a business card, but it had no information save for a number and a short note on the backside. "In case some snotty little brat defeats you and you need help taking them down. Call beforehand as well," it read.

Ultraviolet frowned. In the time that she'd been beating up Syndrome, he hadn't been concentrating on her words, but giving her his number without her noticing. Brilliant.


	3. According To Plan

AN: Ugh, this took longer than expected again. I'm working on Chapter 5 right now- okay, that's a lie. I've just finished Chapter 4. But I'm still very behind on revising and posting, so I thought I'd do it now, while I have free time. My Synlet notebook has seen so much use this year that the front and back cover are only held on by a paper clip, and... yeah. Hopefully this chapter will turn out as well as the last two did. (I tend to do some revising and adding and explaining as I type because I realize that it doesn't make sense or could use some rewording.) I'd also like to send a short acknowledgement to my international readers. Hi, international readers! Anyway... I'm still not a Disney CEO, or Steve Jobs, so I don't own The Incredibles and by default Buddy or Violet. Cara is mine. There's a little bit of graphic-ness and a little bit of swearing, as well.

Oh, and this chapter is really long compared to the other ones. Sorry. ^^;

* * *

"Hi, you've reached Buddy Pine. I'm not sure how you got my number seeing as it's not in your phone book, so you're going to want to redial." Beep.

Violet frowned. Apparently he still wasn't home from his lunch, or he was purposely avoiding her. It seemed surprisingly characteristic of him to give her his number and then just sit around listening as she sent him messages. Well, the satisfaction was going to stop here.

"Hey, Buddy. It's Violet again. I was just checking to see if you were home yet. Since you're probably sitting around at your house just listening to me call you and snickering about how you think I'm dependent on hearing your voice or something, I'm going to stop calling now and let _you_ do the calling back. I'm sure you have Caller ID."

The heroine hung up, satisfied. There was another number she still needed to dial, anyway. After punching in the numbers, the phone rang only twice before the aging man on the other end answered, "Hello?"

"Hey, Rick. It's Vi."

There was a relieved sigh from the other end. Knowing the state of things, he'd probably been getting calls from exasperated mini-heroes tagging along with their family who wanted to be the exception to the "Drinking Age Rule" as her father called it. Twenty and a half was still not twenty-one, but Violet knew that she'd wanted to get out on her own since she'd been eighteen. Alas, rules were rules.

"And why am I so privileged to receive this call today?"

"Have my parents called you yet? I don't think they have my number." Violet found herself longing for her parents' old corded phone, as it was very hard for her to wrap her fingers around a nonexistent line.

"Actually, no. I called them to confirm a rumor, but they had no idea. You should really tell your parents things before I hear about them, Vi."

"What rumor did you hear?"

"It's been going around that our old buddy Syndrome is alive and has decided to become your nemesis."

"Oh, yeah. Can you file that for me?"

"How can you overlook telling people that?"

"Well, I figured they already knew he was alive. The Omnidroid's been rampaging all over Metroville for a week now. It's been all over the news, the press is eating it up like a chocolate-creme donut."

Rick chuckled. "Since you left, I've missed your donut similes. Anyway. I haven't had the time to watch the news, and neither have your parents. Golden Age villains have been popping up all over the place, and they're crushing them like the bugs they are. Obviously all the Parrs are doing right now is extermination, seeing as you're dealing with the apparent master of returning from the dead with no explanation."

"There's got to be an explanation, Rick. I intend to find out what it is."

"So how have things been going between you and Cockroach-Boy, then?"

"Oh, Syndrome? He, erm, gave me his number."

"Why?!"

"I don't know. It was at the same time that I was beating his face in for insulting my inability to kill him. Humph. And he said _I _didn't know how the code worked. That man has a mouth with a death wish, I swear."

"Apparently not enough of one," Rick muttered. "Can you come down here and give it to us so we can pinpoint a location? We'll only access it if you need it or if something happens to you. He is _your_ nemesis, after all."

"Thanks, Rick. It means a lot to me."

"Well, I hadn't heard anything about you getting injured, so obviously you're at least somewhat of an even match for him."

"Yeah. If I hadn't been, it's not like I couldn't call my dad, either..."

"Well, if you need help, we'll be here as well in case you can't contact him for whatever reason."

"I'll keep that in mind. Talk to you later," Violet said, and hung up. The Super thought for a moment, then decided to try calling her nemesis again.

On the other end of the line, the red-haired inventor was listening to his messages. "Hey, Buddy. Just making sure I got the right number." Beep. "Forgot to mention it was Violet the last time. Sorry. Bye." Beep. "Hey, Buddy. It's Violet again. I was just checking to see if you were home yet. Since you're probably sitting around at your house just listening to me call you and snickering about how you think I'm dependent on hearing your voice or something, I'm going to stop calling now and let _you_ do the calling back. I'm sure you have Caller ID."

Syndrome chuckled. Of course she'd be suspicious enough to think he'd been sitting at home the entire time. Well, it wasn't as though he was actually just going out to eat at a fast-food restaurant or something, that wouldn't have taken an hour or so. A fellow villain had called him to a meeting/lunch, having noticed that villains all over the country were mysteriously vanishing. The topic had interested him greatly, as one person had come to mind during the entire conversation.

That person had also taken the time to call him, he noted as screaming emanated from the answering machine. The voice was in the tone of an angry ex, but far too shrill to be Mirage.

"BUDDY PINE! PICK UP YOUR PHONE! I KNOW YOU'RE HOME! YOU'RE GOING TO-" Syndrome pressed the 'delete message' button before Cara could get any further. The villain had better things to do than listen to a former friend scream at him via a recorded message.

_Like listen to Violet scream, for instance,_ he thought. _I'll be doing that for a while once this plan comes to fruition. Oh, right, she wanted me to call her back._

It didn't take long for Syndrome to get her on the line. "Hello?" came the cheery reply, along with the scraping noise in the background that he automatically associated with buttering toast.

"Are you making toast?"

"Ugh, I'd know that voice anywhere. So you finally decided to call me back- and yes, as a matter of fact I am. Why did you give me your number?"

"Why not? I figured you might need it someday."

"You know, I just realized something."

"Which is...?"

"I should hate you."

"Wow, this is an interesting topic considering your casual tone."

"I guess so. It's just so weird fighting you. Half of the time, I'm strong like I usually am, and half of the time I'm... not." The truth of the matter was, Syndrome made her feel like Incredigirl again for the first time since she was eighteen, not even close to being independent. When she fought him, she felt so unsure of herself and her powers, hiding behind invisibility at every turn. This was definitely going to be a problem. Incredigirl swallowed, withholding her emotions (and in a way, Syndrome's small victory over her) and took a deep breath before speaking.

"This whole time, I've been just... mildly annoyed with you. You're causing mass destruction and all I care about is being woken up early. I'm treating you like an old friend or an obnoxious neighbor, not a genocidal maniac. You even tried to kill me and kidnap my little brother. I really should hate you."

"The way you're going with this, I assume you're going to say that you don't?"

"How can I? Even after all that you did, you brought my family back together. You showed the world that it needed Supers, otherwise we'd have scheming idiots like you." Violet smirked. No. She wasn't Incredigirl. That was behind her. She was Ultraviolet, and Ultraviolet was strong enough to stare down the ghost of her past and insult him over the phone.

There was a short, almost barking laugh from the other end of the line, then a response to her quip. "You have guts, _Incredigirl._ At least you're not fearless and stupid like your father."

"My dad's not fearless. Why would it make him stupid, anyway?"

"Fear is a natural prevention to doing stupid things. If you were, say, about to poke a sleeping bear in the eye, common sense would tell you not to do it, and then the fear of the result would keep you from doing it. Those who are fearless defy their common sense. Before you say it, yes, some fears are irrational, but so are people who fear nothing. It usually gets them killed in the end."

"So you have fears."

"Of course I do. Did you think I'm some sort of monster or something? Oh, wait, I am. Never mind. Anyone with half a brain would fear pain and death."

"You're not afraid of being found out? Or is it something completely irrational that your mind can give reasoning to, like spiders or elevators?"

"If I had a fear like that, do you honestly think I'd tell you?"

"I guess not."

"As I was saying, you have guts. But I'll be the first to admit that yes, I was an idiot."

"Say that again?"

"I was stupid and reckless. Come on. I wasn't supposed to be a hero. It was a dumb plan to get even with your dad, and it failed." Syndrome paused.

"Then, while I was getting fixed from the turbine, I realized something."

"What's that?"

"My greatest revenge is being a villain. Your dad caused my fall from grace, and as long as I keep being the antagonist, I'm getting even with him," Syndrome lied. Sure, that was part of it, but capturing Violet and turning her against her father... Not only would it be his greatest revenge, but it would also be much more satisfying.

"So you're just out to wreak havoc so my dad feels bad about making you this way."

"Basically." Silence ensued, but it was eventually broken once more by the villain.

"Would you ever date me?" The villain grinned. This question was intended only to throw her off guard-

"Maybe if you were the last man on earth," Violet replied, then took an apparent bite of her toast.

The redhead was shocked. She hadn't even paused to think about it before giving a comeback. There was no indication that she'd been startled, she'd shown no interest in the question... nothing.

"You'd rather date your father than me?" Syndrome asked after pausing a mere moment to get over his surprise.

"Without a doubt," came the cold response. "Goodbye." With that, Ultraviolet hung up.

Syndrome blinked several times, then returned his phone to its hook. Despite her being completely un-surprised, she'd still called several times beforehand, and he'd kept her on the phone longer than he bargained for. Everything was happening all at once, but it was going in the general direction that he wanted it to.

Soon, Violet Parr would be his and there was nothing the Incredibles could do about it.

---

The young adult sat impatiently in front of her computer screen, waiting for the surveillance cameras to load. Her dark hair, flipped up at the ends, quivered with her anxious table tapping; and she constantly fidgeted with the goggles resting atop her head.

Syndrome would never see her coming. He would expect a lackey, maybe, but little did her former colleague know that she had no lackeys. She did all her own dirty work. That was the most fun part, really.

Cara frowned as she looked back at the screen. Nothing. She had no way of tracing Ultraviolet. But that was okay. Ultraviolet would answer the call for help of her nemesis, and the plan would fall into place. Cara had only paid attention to chemistry in high school, but that was all she was using at this point. Syndrome owed her, and him being her guinea pig was a pretty fair trade.

The villainess studied the cameras even more, then finally decided to just give up on Ultraviolet for the time being. The hero would come. All the rest had.

Cara shut her laptop and shoved it inside its large case inside her coat. It still bore the "S" it had been made with, as it had come from an employee closet on Nomanisan-though it had gone through some alterations. Cara thought it ironic that she was wearing the emblem of someone who would soon work for her.

The woman dashed up the stairs to her old friend's apartment. She took a moment to prepare her roster of needles, filled with all manners of chemicals and drugs to immobilize him, then knocked on the door.

It opened slowly, but before Syndrome could shut it again, Cara had shoved one of her high-top sneakers in the door. "I'm getting the feeling I'm unwelcome here."

"You are," the redhead spat, and Cara drew out a needle.

"Back up and let me in."

"I'm not stupid, Cara."

"Oh, really." The woman stuck the needle through the doorway, pointing it directly at him. "Then you'll let me in."

Panic overtook Syndrome, and he opened the door fully. Cara strode in, smirking. "Nice place you got here. Mind giving me the grand tour?"

"Actually, I do." The villain glared.

"Oh, well. That's really too bad for you," Cara replied, still smirking. "This one is all my others packed into one," she said, holding up the needle. "Multiple chemical reactions at once, and you're about to get a 'healthy' dose of the prototype."

Syndrome backed away, terrified. He was not as frightened of the woman or the liquid contained in the needle as the syringe itself, oddly enough.

"Oh, yeah, and you're afraid of needles, aren't you?" Cara asked, grinning sadistically. The cyberkinetic grabbed his arm and plunged the needle into his skin, draining it of its contents. Within a few seconds he was on the ground, holding back screams of agony. Cara ignored his pain and walked past him.

"It changes," she remarked before walking away with her typical confident strides. The somewhat short woman turned the corner and went into the computer room.

Cara's eyes widened as she stared into the room. Now this was somewhere where she felt at home. Monitors lined the walls, some depicting cameras planted in the Parr household and others awaiting a password. Cara placed a glowing hand on the hard drive and attempted to hack into the mainframe, but instead received a burning feeling make its way up her arm, almost as though flames had their its way into her bloodstream.

"Damn," she muttered. "Firewall."

Cara exited the room in hopes of getting the password out of Syndrome. The inventor lay prone on the floor, completely unmoving. His eyes were wide and unblinking, and Cara frowned. "At this rate I'll never get the password out of you," she mumbled. "I need it so you can send a message for your precious little Ultraviolet."

As her fellow villain stared at the ceiling, Cara went through his messages on his answering machine. It didn't hold anything particularly interesting for her, save for the fact that "Violet" had called multiple times.

"Ultraviolet. Humph. How original," Cara muttered sarcastically. "You'd think she'd have been able to come up with something less obvious."

The villainess turned around, back toward her victim. Syndrome had just lost consciousness. "Well, I suppose I'll have to wait until he wakes up again, then."

She'd take him to the computer room, leave a message for Ultraviolet to find as she inevitably would, and then leave with the inventor in tow and the Super on her way.

Everything was going exactly according to plan.


	4. Doors

AN: I've been suffering from some less-than-confidence in my writing and my obsession, so I decided to type this up to restore them both. I've been overworking myself with school so much that I've forgotten to focus on what's really important to me: writing. Okay, school is important too, but... this is for school. I'm turning in the first chapter for Creative Writing and giving everyone a handwritten link to the rest of the story at the end. Then they'll read it. Mwahahaha... Ahem! Anyway, I'd like to thank all my readers (38 in just this month, 119 last month!) for reading, although more reviews would be nice... I've been getting a lot of people favoriting it and adding it to their story alerts, but I really like knowing why... Ah, well. I shouldn't be complaining. This is easily my most popular (and best) story so far.

I don't own The Incredibles, but after watching the commentary I'm thinking about doing commentaries about my fanfictions and on my AMVs in general... Oh, and Cara's mine. Don't use her without permission or she'll come after you with needles and possessed computers. No, seriously.

* * *

It had been two weeks since Syndrome had gone missing.

Violet spent most of her time stopping minor crimes such as bank robberies and car chases. A few days had been spent at home taking out Golden Age villains, but she just didn't feel up to taking out someone's nemesis when her own was no longer around. She'd never gotten this much sleep in her life, but she'd also never been so... bored. Everything was routine and monotonous, and she almost missed the destruction outside her apartment window.

Ultraviolet's nemesis was missing, and he'd left a hole in her life just as Tony had done with her heart when they'd gone their separate ways. A fleeting thought crossed her mind, but was quickly shaken away. A lot of heroes liked saving the world from their nemesis because it was challenging and fun. That was all she was feeling. Her nemesis was gone and she missed saving Metroville from a well known villain- what was so wrong about that?

The Super exhaled and walked over to her telephone to make a call to the NSA. Rick had kept to his word, and she needed to know where Syndrome had gone. When she heard the answering machine again, Violet realized that she'd called the one person she couldn't get off her mind instead of Rick. _Force of habit,_ she thought. _I've called him so many times lately that it's just... happening when I don't realize it. _Instead of hanging up before the beep, Violet instead left one final message to follow her eleven others.

"I'm coming," Violet said, then pressed the power button twice and dialed the number for the NSA.

_Where have you gone?_ she pondered, the phone still ringing. After what seemed like a lifetime, a voice came on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Rick. Syndrome's gone."

The old man somehow had less than disbelief in his voice as he stated what would normally be a question. "What."

"He hasn't showed up for two weeks and he's not answering phone calls. Either he's skipped town or something happened to him. I need his address. Maybe he'll have left some kind of clue behind, some trace... A guy like him can't just disappear off the radar and expect to get away with it."

"Maybe he didn't expect to get away unnoticed, Vi. He could just be up to his old tricks, and what you're saying is only confirming my suspicions."

"What?"

"Nomanisan's been stolen."

"How do you steal an _island,_ Rick?"

"Someone hacked into our computers and destroyed the documentation that proved we ever owned it. A large amount of Supers have disappeared as well and haven't come back. They were all called to the island. Our surveillance technology malfunctions once the island is within three miles. I seriously doubt he's going to be at his house."

"Just give me the address. I'll go check the place. There's a good chance that if he left something behind, something to try and get me to go after him without realizing it's a trap, it's there."

"I can't give it to you over the phone. Someone could be tapping the line."

"You have a point," Violet replied with a sigh. "I'll be right over."

Violet's apartment was conveniently close to the local NSA office. While she easily could've driven, Violet preferred to walk. In less than fifteen minutes, her uneventful walk had ended and she stood before Rick Dicker expectantly, watching him shuffle through files looking for the words to write on the scrap of paper in front of him.

"You know, if he'd just died, we probably wouldn't be in this mess," Rick grumbled as he shuffled through the P section.

"Well, if he had died, I wouldn't have a nemesis, either. I have to say, he definitely... spices things up."

"You're a lot like your father."

"Huh?"

"The man's caused massive amounts of damage to Metroville and all you're saying is that he makes your life more fun. Your dad's all about the thrill, too."

"That's not what I'm all about," Violet protested. "Without villains, we wouldn't be saving anyone."

"I see he's been monologuing."

"Well, what else am I supposed to do? I was taught to listen to people when they're talking when I was a kid. It's not like all the monologues are the same or anything. At the very least, his aren't."

Rick grunted, pulling out the massive folder labeled 'Pine, Buddy (Syndrome).' "Well, at least someone's listening to them."

"Well, doesn't he deserve to be listened to?"

Rick looked up at Violet with a serious almost-glare. "Syndrome is a Super-killing schizophrenic psycho. I don't see how you can sympathize with him at all."

"Well, we did take everything away from him the last time we saw him. He's a genius, and we almost made it so that we could never use his intelligence for anything ever again. My dad was really harsh and traumatic events have been known to cause mental disorders. We also know next to nothing about his past, who's to say he hasn't been an abuse victim or something?"

The only response to Violet's defense was a blank stare.

"Besides. Even if we were allowed to kill with the code, I wouldn't. After my first villain before the code was set in stone... I could never do it again."

"You never seemed like the squeamish type to me..." The old man flipped through the folder.

"Teens tell their parents what they want to hear all the time, Rick. It's not necessarily the truth."

"What?"

"I love saving the world, but I can't stand killing because of how... similar I am to the villains, or at least how similar I used to be. I was so angry at the world as an early teen and I thought that saving people was pointless because they'd never appreciate it. It took me a while and Syndrome's provocation to realize that I really do love the career choice I was practically destined to do. Villains remind me of myself as a teenager... bitter toward the world, angsty, sarcastic... and when I killed one of them, took a life because they were doing something I didn't like... I felt like one of them, Rick. I really did. Most heroes feel no guilt about this kind of thing, and it disgusts me. They're just like the villains they fight."

"I find it ironic that you defended someone who has no regard for life and stated how high yours is in the same conversation," Rick said as he pulled out a page from the enormous file, scratching the address out on the scrap of paper next to it.

"It's very possible that he only disregarded life when it was that of a Super."

"Maybe. Go out to his house," Rick responded, pushing the paper toward Violet, "figure out what he says is going on, and then come back here tomorrow after letting it sink in. We'll send you out there since you're capable of great things. I think you can get inside his head and take him out, and save all the heroes in the process... or future heroes he was planning on bringing there, if none are still alive."

"Thanks, Rick."

"Oh, and Violet?"

"Hmm?"

"You've got another thing in common with the villains, and it'll help you a lot in this case."

"What's that?"

"I don't think I've ever heard a finer monologue in my life."

It wasn't long before Violet found herself looking at the door to an apartment that was not her own. The door creaked open, unlocked as it was. Apparently, the people here were trustworthy; either that or the living space had already been broken into. Violet quietly entered the darkened room, the only weapons she carried being a natural part of her, and the only gadgets the wonders of Edna Mode's design skills.

The invisible girl stepped into the penthouse apartment, which began with the kitchen. The entire place was bereft of light, though the window would normally provide some. Instead, it gave only a view of the city below and cast a muted grey tone throughout the living room it was in as well as the adjoining kitchen Violet stood in. It was small for a penthouse, only a little larger than Violet's apartment. Then again, it was hardly small compared to other apartments she'd seen in the complex.

This was a place devoid of life.

Violet moved on, careful to avoid anything that could alert a security system to her presence. She crept through the kitchen, past the phone and answering machine with a blinking red "12" on it, and after glancing into the living room, moved on into the hallway. The hall contained three doors- the one ahead of her was slightly open and seemed to have a large bedroom inside, the right door was similarly ajar and had cleaning supplies, and the door on her left was shut tight. The door that did not reveal what was behind it intrigued her the most. Her transparent hand gripped the knob and turned it, pulling the door open.

The room looked as though it used to be a closet, and a rather large one at that, filled with appliances and utilities or something to that effect. Now it housed several computer screens above a desk made of two filing cabinets and a thick sheet of metal. A keyboard rested on the desk, but no mouse. The room was so full of screens it seemed almost claustrophobic, and the eerie blue glow they cast lit the room in a familiar way, one that took the Super back six years to the cell block she'd been in on Nomanisan. Violet was shaken by the similarity, but walked in anyway.

A light on one of the monitors blinked red and the picture changed from her bedroom to an infra-red version of the room she was in. Violet saw her heat signature on the screen and stayed rooted to the spot. It had caught her. The camera beeped expectantly as it analyzed her heat signature.

"Match: Ultraviolet," a mechanical voice dictated. "Room is secure. Commence video recording." The central monitor lit up with an apparently recorded message of Syndrome. The villain looked peculiar without his mask, almost normal. Of course, she also couldn't see most of his towering hair...

"Violet. I know what you're thinking. No, I haven't skipped town. I'm not the one behind the kidnappings. I realize that you probably don't believe a word I'm saying, and you shouldn't because I'm not the most trustworthy person on the face of the earth, but for once, I'm not lying. I don't blame you if you're skeptical."

Violet rolled her eyes. Was he telling her to believe him or not?

"As you'll recall, in our last battle I got a call from an old friend who wasn't friendly after all. Well, she decided she wanted to take me. She wanted me to make a message to entice you to come to Nomanisan so she could do to you whatever is in store for me, but I'm going to tell you the exact opposite. Do NOT come after me. Cara is my problem, not yours. I can take her on and I'm sure you're much more important to your family than I am to you.

"In the event of my death or several near-death experiences, the left lower filing cabinet will open. Inside is a case of CDs which are recordings of me narrating my life, my story. I figured you'd be the only one who would want them, the only one who would care enough to listen all the way through." Violet attempted to open the drawer and with a fair amount of jiggling, it popped open. The heroine picked up the four CD cases as Syndrome continued.

"I'm sorry in advance for all the trouble I've caused you. I may live and I may not. In the latter case, tell your dad I'm sorry. I wish that he would've been able to finish the job more than anyone else. So, assuming you've been listening this whole time... please. Don't come after me. Cara is not a force to be trifled with. She'll kill you. Leave that fate to someone who deserves it."

With his final, melancholy line, the computer screen went dark again and the infra-red monitor returned to a picture of her room. Violet placed her hand on the cold metal desk, and a mouse pointer appeared on a screen which showed the living room of her home. She tapped on her father, and a small profile popped up stating his name, age, and recent Super exploits. Violet tapped the metal again and it disappeared. So the desk was touch-sensitive. This was new.

Tapping the couch brought up a zoomed-in picture of it, close enough to see the individual threads. Violet tapped once more and left the room, choosing not to invade her nemesis's privacy any more than she already had. As the Super left the apartment, she frowned.

Did he honestly think she'd just sit back and let him die at the hands of some girl she didn't even know?

At least telling her not to come would give her one thing, a very good thing that many heroes loved and took advantage of: the element of surprise. Violet had no idea that she wouldn't have that element at all.

Cara had expected Syndrome to tell her not to come and had prepared accordingly. She wasn't usually one to plot, opting instead for unadulterated chaos, but in this case it was necessary. The chaos had to be contained.

"Your girlfriend WILL come, no matter what," she remarked to the imprisoned inventor, who was curled up in the corner of his room. "You know that, right?"

The redhead mumbled something, shifting uncomfortably in what appeared to be a straitjacket.

"What was that?"

"Her family will know better. And even if they don't, you took down all the island's defenses. Face it, Cara. Ultraviolet is an Incredible. You don't stand a chance. It took all four to defeat me, and she's more powerful than you think."

"It only took one of me to take you down."

"You caught me by surprise, you exploited my fears, and you screwed around with the mechanisms that keep me alive," Syndrome growled.

"And who's to say I won't do the same to her?"

"You never 'fixed' her because she never died."

"By the time I'm done with her, she'll wish she had," Cara said as she shut the double doors.


	5. Master Plans

AN: Well, despite the fact that Chapter 6 is totally not done, I decided to type this up anyway. I think I just need to rewrite the whole chapter. So. Enjoy Chapter 5 of Ultraviolet. More reviews would be nice. Seriously, people. Even if it's just a "great job." I'm getting a little tired of people faving this story and leaving no reason as to why it's one of their favorites. I wouldn't be so annoyed if I didn't have fifty some faves and alerts and only ten comments. :/

Okay, minilogue over, I still don't own The Incredibles, but Cara is mine and Charlie... was in The Incredibles but wasn't given any personification so I'm not sure who he belongs to.

Sorry about how long this took... Fight scene inspiration brought to you by _Human_, written by TheSilverWarrior. Go read it. NOW.

* * *

"So he's your nemesis."

Violet chewed her cereal in complete silence. Helen just stared, while Bob continued to try to get information out of his daughter.

"Why didn't you tell us this before?"

"I was going to eventually. I tried to when I helped last week, but no one paid any attention to me."

"We're sorry, Vi. We're just afraid for you. Rick's very confident in you and your abilities, but..."

"What?" Violet asked, her face turning serious.

"We're worried is all," Helen replied. "You have a tendency to get involved with missions very personally, and it could be a handicap here."

"Are you trying to tell me not to go?"

"No, we're just... Please be careful, Vi," her mother pleaded. "You seemed the most affected when we thought he died the first time. He may have just been watching the whole time, he might just be... using you."

Violet was about to protest when she realized that Helen had a point. "I'll be careful not to let him get to me, I promise."

"Okay."

"Do you want me to drive you down to the NSA?" Bob offered.

"Sure."

"I'll be in the Incredibile when you're ready." The aging hero kissed his wife on the cheek and left for the garage.

"Violet... please, be careful. Your dad was one of the most powerful heroes at the time and he barely survived. Syndrome's probably upgraded by now, and... we can't lose you."

The heroine hugged her mother. "I'll be okay, Mom, I promise. After all, I'm a superhero, what could happen?"

Helen was about to tell her daughter that the phrase had only brought bad things to the family, but by the time she opened her mouth, Violet was already at the garage door.

"Bye, Mom."

With that, Violet disappeared into the garage.

"Are you planning on sticking around and hearing what I've got to do?" Violet asked as she hopped into the Incredibile.

"Yeah. Afterword I'll check out some reports on what I can do. There are still Golden Age villains popping up."

"No kidding." The Incredibile's engine rumbled.

"It's been a long time since I- woah!" Violet clung to the door as the vehicle took off.

"Load your suit into the slot below the glove compartment," Bob instructed. "I'm sure Rick would prefer it if we were in 'costume.'"

As Violet placed her suit into the slot and both father and daughter's seats leaned back, Bob continued to speak.

"I'm so glad I got this old thing back. Even though it comes with all the less than pleasant memories..." He glanced at the seat Violet was in.

The seats shot back up as both Parrs became fully suited up. Within a minute, the Incredibile was parked in front of the NSA.

"How you feeling, Vi?" Mr. Incredible whispered as they walked toward the building.

"Pretty good, actually." Ultraviolet smiled at her father.

Mr. Incredible smiled back and pushed open the door as he muttered the family catchphrase.

"Showtime."

The door swung open with relative ease, revealing Rick Dicker to the pair.

Rick smiled down at Violet. "You look great, Vi."

"Thanks."

The trio walked down the hall with no interference, leading them to Rick's office at the end. Rick opened the door, allowing both Incredibles in before shutting the door behind himself.

"So... why you're here." Rick cleared his throat, seeming to prepare himself mentally for the speech he was about to deliver.

"As Violet already knows, numerous amounts of Supers have gone missing. Each one was called on a mission to a remote island, none of them came back. It's been revealed from some of our reports that the same thing has been happening to villains, as well. Some of the most famous have been the disappearances of Sonicwave of Minneapolis, her nemesis Draconia, Psyche and Enigma from New York City, Gemini from Municiberg- nemesis unknown, and of course Syndrome."

"Well, I don't think he'd take villains. He doesn't seem the type, he had stuff against heroes, not fellow villains. Besides, he helped write the code, and I've been looking over it... there's actually stuff against even kidnapping a nemesis that belongs to someone else. Why would he bother putting that in there if he was planning to violate it anyway?"

Bob stared at his daughter. "Why were you reading the villain code?"

"Well, I had to have something to do. I was bored out of my mind and I figured I'd get familiar with their rules so I can use them to my advantage. It won't work against villains that don't follow the code, but maybe I can gain the upper hand over Syndrome that way."

Mr. Incredible looked surprised that any ward of his would even consider reading something partially written by Syndrome, but said nothing.

"So, do go on, Rick. About the missing Supers?"

"Right." The head of the local NSA office blinked, then went on. "We're pretty sure there's a connection between the disappearances and Syndrome. After all, they are going to his former island."

"They started going missing before he did."

"How do you know he wasn't taking them before he left?"

"He was too busy fighting me."

"This could all have been a setup for you."

"What?"

"Syndrome has an obsession with your entire family. He went through an entire genocide plot just to get to your dad... what makes you think he wouldn't kidnap more Supers to get to you?"

Violet pondered this for a moment. "Point."

"Whenever we try and send surveillance technology to the island, it short-circuits once it passes the beachline and leaves us with nothing," Rick continued. "We're assuming that nothing works except things that Syndrome's designed."

"So I'm going in without technology?" Violet asked, aghast.

"Well, you almost have to be flown there, but we have some purely mechanical things, no electricity required. Those should retain their function and get you the rest of the way to the island. You'll also have a few changes of clothes, all of which will be able to turn invisible."

"And you think that's sufficient?"

"I think you can handle it. You've faced him before, you know his weaknesses. You're an Incredible." The old man smiled as Bob stood up, still silent.

When they were both finally out of earshot, she muttered two words under her breath before following suit.

"Not anymore."

After receiving her equipment, Violet boarded the jet and placed her bag on the seat next to her. Unzipping it, she picked up a set of CDs with a taped-on label reading "Syndrome".

"Well, I guess this is the part where I listen to his overly-lengthy life story," she said with a semi-smirk, inserting the first CD into a built-in CD player. Before she fully realized what had happened, the voice of her nemesis had surrounded her.

"Ah, Violet. To open this grand tale I have to call my life, I will use an already overused cliche in greeting. _So we meet again._

"This first disc is just a somewhat short synopsis of my life. Everything else is covered in more detail on the other three. Part of my story, I'm sure you already know. For the first eight years of my life, I was the most immense fan of your father anyone had ever met. That, of course, met an abrupt end. For the next fifteen years of my life, I invented only for revenge. Granted, I still had decent grades and got crammed into my share of lockers just as any nerd in high school has, but I turned out alright in the end. It was during high school that I met Cara and subsequently went separate ways from her.

"After I gained some money from inventions, I managed to boost myself into the world of business- not legal business, mind you, but money is money, no matter where it comes from. Soon, I had enough to buy an island. I kept up my operations, and began development of the Omnidroid.

"Well, you know the next part. I slaughtered a trail of Supers, bringing out the worst in me, condemning me to the part of the villain. At the time, I didn't mind. I didn't care. I was just a villain because Mr. Incredible was a hero, and I didn't want to be like him. It took me one visit from him and a lot of phone calls to my workers' families to realize that I didn't do as much _mindless_ killing as he did. Mine was intentional, deliberate... his was because they got in his way. That thought was the one thing that kept me alive after the turbine. I had more of a regard for life in my opinion, and I was more brilliant than he was.

"So, the turbine. There are no words to describe that kind of pain. Not just the physical pain, but mental as well. My greatest hero had just tried to kill me. At that point, I was almost positive that he was going to succeed.

"Then, just when I was certain it was all over, a bloody mass lying on the ground... Cara found me. I've never been quite sure if it was a blessing or a curse since.

"She saved me not out of any obligation, no reason at all. Her only reasoning was that she _wanted to save my life. _She said I didn't owe her, but a few years later she went back on that agreement and has been sending me nasty messages ever since.

"But... part of me believes firmly that I deserve it. I deserved to die, and now that I haven't I deserve to pay for it. My life is in a sad state of affairs, and my dealing with your family cost me an arm and a leg. _Literally_.

"I accessed some of my money again, though I'll never tell you where it was in case I end up getting caught. I lived a semi-comfortable life... until I found out about you.

"You... turned my world upside down. You took everything I knew and punched it in the face. You're my nemesis for a reason, Ultraviolet, but that is for me to know and you to figure out on your own."

Violet stared at the disc which had ejected itself. It had been deceptively short, and yet had told her the basics of all she needed to know.

The eldest child of Robert Parr did not settle for the basics. Not now, not ever.

She popped in the second disc and continued to listen to the life story of her nemesis.

Violet was halfway into the third disc when the alarms beeped, signaling her proximity to Nomanisan.

The heroine jabbed the eject button roughly, packing the items back into their temporary housing before the plane crashed with little warning.

The jet did exactly the opposite of what was expected, however.

It approached the beach and Violet prepared herself for departure, but soon found herself unable to move except for her eyes.

The entire plane was encased in a familiar blue glow that nearly made her heart stop.

She'd just been captured, with little to no escape possible.

The vehicle was let down in an oddly regulated manner, setting down gently on the beach instead of crashing. Violet was frightened, scared out of her wits even. This was not how things were supposed to go.

But it was how they were going, and as she exited the plane in full Super attire, her nemesis took the opportunity to utilize his zero-point energy again. Ultraviolet's reflexes were much quicker than she'd anticipated, however, and before the beam even got to her she'd already thrown up a shield to block it as she walked toward him.

"Ultraviolet." Syndrome turned off his technology and bowed slightly, a giant smirk creeping across his face.

"Syndrome," Violet replied with a sarcastic curtsy.

"Shall we dance?"

"It would be my pleasure."

At this cue, the two started into an odd mixture of fighting and dancing. When bolts of zero-point lightning shot from his fingertips, a purple shield of light would deflect them right back at him. He would neatly sidestep, she would disappear from his sight. He'd fly, she'd hit him with another shield. Their fight flowed and moved in ways it should not have, their dance filled with cheap shots at one another. It soon became so heated that neither one could discern where the spar ended and the waltz began.

The fight ended prematurely when Violet, a forcefield surrounding her hand, hit Syndrome in the back of the head. The villain fell face-first into the ground, unconscious.

The heroine dashed back to the plane, taking the opportunity to grab her bag from the seat and return in time to see him on his hands and knees. His once-triumphant red hair had wilted, falling from its signature flame styling ever so slightly. His arms were shaking beyond belief, and Violet found it hard to believe that someone with mechanical limbs would tremble so badly.

Syndrome looked toward her, then fell back into the ground as his arms gave way. His breathing became staggered as one of his arms jolted up momentarily, then fell to his side once more.

"Are you okay?" Violet asked, concern drifting around the edges of her question.

"Not even close," the supervillain groaned. "I can't even stand, thanks to you."

"I didn't hit you that hard."

"No, I failed to capture you. Thus, I have to be punished."

"Says who? Cara?"

Syndrome nodded weakly.

"Why can't you stand up?"

"She can control machines," he replied, trying to push himself up again. This time, however, Violet helped him to his feet, which he quickly turned against her in the form of zero-point energy.

"I'm in horrific pain, but I'm not _that_ weak. You're going to go into a cell with a few other famous chicks like yourself and go through the same routine we all have. I... I'm sorry, but I have no choice in the matter."

Violet was unsettled by this apology. He was a villain, he was supposed to be evil through and through- not apologizing for what another villain was making him do. Shouldn't he be getting some sort of sick pleasure from this? He was capturing his nemesis. Maybe he didn't get joy from it because it was for Cara, but that still didn't justify it all.

Within a few minutes, Syndrome had activated his rocket boots and flown to what was now Cara's base, releasing Violet from the zero-point energy and dropping her in front of a guard all in an uncomfortable silence. Violet stared at him oddly as he walked away, then found a new weight on her chest, however light. She looked down and discovered that she was wearing what looked like a dog tag.

"What is this?" she asked the guard.

"You'll just have to wait and see, _Little Miss Disappear_."

The voice seemed vaguely familiar to Violet, but the phrase struck her more than his voice did. "Who are you?"

"One of the few that survived the incredible massacre your family caused. I'm glad I was the one sent after you. You're the only one who didn't kill anyone."

"What?" Violet asked, shocked. The guard took her hands and held them behind her back, pushing her toward the door which slid open without a sound.

"Your father threw a rock at my best friend's head. He's still in a coma. I was one of the very few who survived. I think there were only three."

"Who was your best friend?"

"James McKeen."

"Kari," Violet muttered under her breath.

"His daughter, yeah. No one told anyone that he'd been hit by Mr. Incredible. They just said it was a work-related accident. Nobody really wanted a Golden Age redo."

"I didn't know you all had... families. Lives."

"What, so you thought we were all faceless bachelors looking to make a quick buck? Cancer treatment is expensive, Incredigirl, and I'm sure my daughters like not being orphans very much."

"Is your wife going to be okay?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her in seven years. I've been with him since the beginning, but I'd taken a break for a while. About a year after I got back, the whole thing with your family went over, the NSA took the island, and those of us remaining were kept like prisoners of war. Then this chick took over. She's not paying me, but he is- enough to save her for all the trouble I've gone through. He's even gone to the trouble of working on a side project for me."

"That's uncharacteristically nice."

"Before most of this, he wasn't at all. If someone died, he'd actually laugh sometimes. He didn't care about any of us to begin with. Then... Mirage left, and he realized what would happen if he kept disregarding life that wasn't his own. He started calling families when someone died. It's hard to believe, but... it's like he grew a heart overnight. It was broken to bits, but it was something he'd never had before. Why didn't you kill me, anyway?"

"I can't stand it. I hate the idea and the outcome and everything about it."

"I'm grateful for that." Silence followed his short remark.

"Thanks for the insight. What's your name?" Violet asked as they approached what appeared to be the housing units.

"Charlie. Keep on keepin' on, Incredigirl. Maybe you can get innocent people out of this hell."

"Thanks, and it's Ultraviolet."

After Violet entered the room, Charlie turned around to face a figure in the shadows. "Was that good enough for you, boss?"

"More than, thank you." A hand emerged from the darkness, the silver glove clutching two hundred-dollar bills. "I'm glad you didn't lie about most of it, at least. Well, I think she trusts me enough, or at least has the potential to. Wonderful job, Charlie, I really do appreciate it."

"Thanks," Charlie said as he walked off.

As his subordinate left, Syndrome began to monologue under his breath.

"Cara will never see it coming. She'd never expect us to join forces, but it won't be a joining at all, will it? If I can go through with my plan... then it'll be easier than anticipated to both take down Cara and give a nice good blow to the Incredibles' ego. If not... well, we'll just have to see where it all goes. I can change my plan as I go along, Cara can't, really. This ought to be interesting... the dual execution of opposing master plans."


	6. Schadenfreude

AN: Okay, apologies for the rushed-ness of the last chapter, and how short this one is. These last two were... not my best work, I'll admit, and they were really difficult to write just because of the transition between the normalcy of Metroville and the craziness of what could now be called "Nomanisan Asylum". Thankfully, both have come to pass, and plot progression is a wonderful thing. I want to keep the story going and to keep it from getting stagnant and growing mold, so I pushed it through the tough times. The result was this: chapter 6. Wrote this while listening to my specially-made UV playlist and typed it up listening to "Just A Little Girl" by Trading Yesterday which may just go on that playlist yet. No complaints about lack of reviews this chapter, I'm actually pretty content with the following I've got considering that I've had 146 people following the story up to Master Plans in this month alone, which is amazing for me. I haven't even gone a day without at least three readers. Thanks for reading, everyone. It really means a lot to me. Still don't own The Incredibles.

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Violet received a trio of stares as she walked into the dormitory. It was very clear from the start that the fourth super was unwelcome.

"We already have our limit of three. If we have to have four, you're not getting a bed," a blonde girl with mismatched eyes said with a frown. Violet found herself unable to keep eye contact, as she felt that one blue eye and one green was rather disconcerting.

"Actually," a slightly shrill voice remarked from behind the new hero, "Gemini is to come with me."

The blonde shook her head frantically, backing herself up against the wall. "N-no!" she squealed, her eyes opening wide. The other two, a tall brunette and a short black-haired girl with glasses, both looked mortified as well.

"Ultraviolet. I see you've arrived, finally. This is where you'll be staying. I suggest you get to know your roommates while you still can." The voice was given a face, a body- a woman with dark, upturned hair, a pair of goggles resting atop her head, a black jacket with a white S embroidered on her left lapel. The girl took the one apparently called Gemini by the wrist and dragged her out the door, making Violet take stock of her remaining roommates. They both looked vaguely familiar, but out of costume it was extremely difficult to place them.

"Well, that's not a good first impression," the short female said, a light Brooklyn accent detectable in her voice.

"Huh?"

"You walk in, and Cara carts off a friend. Cara NEVER comes in unless she's going to kill someone. I'm pretty sure she did it just to make room for you." Violet winced at the thought of having caused the death of a fellow hero, but tried not to think about it for the time being, instead focusing on her surroundings. The room they were in seemed simple enough: it looked as though it was a common room for three different bedrooms. While Violet scanned the room, the dark-haired one continued, lying down on the couch as the brunette simply gaped.

"Ultraviolet, huh? An Incredible. Just goes to show you that even the 'best' get captured."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The villains said your nemesis made your arrival sound like the second coming or something. It's actually kind of comforting to know you're not that great."

"Oh, shut it, you bitter old leotard-clad cow. Don't listen to her, Ultraviolet. Telepathy is much more useless in crimefighting than defenses, and from what I've seen you are pretty great."

"Wait a minute-" Violet started to protest, but the small, overweight New Yorker had already become enraged.

"At least I have the decency to follow the code, you little law-breaking, snot nosed brat!"

"Who are you calling little?"

"Both of you knock it off!" Violet screamed with a tone she didn't know she possessed. "Get a grip! We aren't enemies here, got that? The enemy is Cara. She's the one killing people here." Recognition dawned on her as she realized who her roommates were, causing her to add to her speech. "She's the one breaking the law and oppressing innocent people. She's the one we should focus on taking down. We need to work together to make this work."

Despite Violet's exploitation of both of her fellow heroes' motivation, the smaller one continued to argue. "What good would teamwork do? None of us can use our powers."

"She's got a valid point. That tag you're wearing suppresses your powers so that you're as powerful as a normal human. Try and take it off, and you'll get a shock powerful enough to disintegrate an elephant."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating a little?"

"Well, gee. Why don't you try it and see? Do us all a favor." It was becoming clear very quickly that the ocularly challenged hero was not fond of Violet. The brunette, however, glared at the other Super before taking Violet's hand and shaking it. "Rita Oakley, from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Better known as Sonicwave."

"Violet Parr, pleased to meet you. I'm sure you already know tons about me, but I'm planning on staying in Metroville, California."

"Ooh, a Californian," the remaining Super drawled. "Alina Rowe, from the boring ol' Big Apple. You'd know me as Psyche if you paid attention to other Supers."

"I do. Rita, you're all about being free to make your own choices. You take down oppressive villains and people who infringe on your right to freedom. You don't follow the code, and you're nemesis of Draconia only by mutual agreement. Alina, you uphold law to the extreme and reprimand heroes and villains alike that break laws or the code. You're all about order. Your nemesis is Enigma, who frustrates you because she has no real pattern to her crimes."

"Huh." Alina frowned. "Seems like Incredibrat does know something after all."

"Stop being petty, short-stuff. It's not funny."

"Why don't you stop breaking the law, then?"

"Why don't you just shut up?" Violet spat, her patience wearing severely thin. "Both of you. I'm getting really sick of your bickering really fast, as if I didn't already have enough of a headache."

"You've got a headache? Oh, come on. You haven't even been here an hour, you can't possibly-"

"Her nemesis is Syndrome," Rita interjected. "That man could give anyone a headache in fifteen seconds or less."

"Except me," Alina responded, smirking.

"Yeah, because I swear you're like his obnoxiousness and arrogance condensed then squared!" the brunette yelled. "Just when I swear I can't get any more annoyed by you, you prove me wrong!"

"So, wait. You two have talked to him?"

"Of course," Alina responded, as though it were obvious. "We have to eat lunch with him."

"Oh, wonderful." Violet exhaled and ran her fingers through her hair.

"It ought to be interesting, actually. He's always been an elitist before, only eating with us when he was forced to. I never understood it, he's being tested all the same, it's not like he's any better-"

"Wait, tested?"

"That's what we're here for." Rita shrugged. "Cara treats us all like guinea pigs. She'll test each drug on you, record how long it takes until you scream. Some other chemical goes in, she sees how long it takes before you stop throwing up. She calls it science. It's sadism."

"It's chaos," Alina added.

"What are her motives?"

"The worst kind. _Because she wants to._ There's no way to predict what she'll do next. Who knows if she'll kill you or give you the comfiest bed on the face of the earth? No one. She's insane."

"She does tend more toward the sadism than the kindness, though," Rita added.

"Naturally." Violet sighed, rolling her eyes. "So how are we supposed to take her down?"

"Woah, there. What was that, again? Are you insane? Trying to take her down is suicide. I think everyone's just waiting for the government to show up or something. Not that they can do anything. I'm pretty sure we're all going to die here." Alina adjusted her glasses and closed her eyes. "Unless Syndrome takes her down, it's game over for all of us, and he'd never be able to work up the nerve."

"Nerve? What do you mean? He's got a lot of nerve. I would know."

"He's human, Violet," Rita said with a frown. "He has fears, and she exploits them. She controls all his machines. He's the only one with enough brains to figure out how to beat her, but he'll never act on any of his ideas because he's too afraid."

"What's he so afraid of that she exploits?"

"Have you ever seen how he acts around needles?" Violet shook her head.

"If you so much as put one on a table, he'll close his eyes and start clenching his fists. Point it at him, and it gets even worse. I can't imagine what she does to him."

"Probably the same stuff as everyone else," Rita said. "I feel sorry for him, annoying as he can be."

"What, she only exploits his fears and none of yours?"

"She doesn't know our fears for the most part."

Before Violet could ask any more, a loud screech rang through her ears. "What was that?"

"Notification for lunch. It's just another form of torture. Sometimes we get enough food to feed an entire third-world country for three weeks. Other times, we have to fight with our nemesis to be able to eat at all."

"Wait, what?"

"We have to fight with our nemesis for food sometimes."

"Why don't you just share with them? If it's big enough to provide any sort of nourishment, it's big enough to split."

"Share? Are you nuts? They're villains!" Alina yelled as they walked out of the room. "They'd never agree to it, besides."

"I think they'd agree to it if they knew it'd make Cara upset. She wants to see you fight, she loves seeing the pain. When you battle, she'll be looking at you with this hungry stare that makes you think she's staring at a vanilla cake donut with maple frosting and sprinkles."

"Where did THAT come from?" Alina asked, almost disgusted. "Why are you comparing Cara's delight in other people's pain to a donut?"

Violet shrugged. "I like donut comparisons."

"Well, I don't."

"Nobody likes anything you say anyway, Alina, so let her have her donut speech and you can keep your 'I hate you all' bit that you liked to pull on us so much when Gemini was around."

Alina frowned and went silent as the trio walked toward the apparent lunch room. From the other side of the door, Violet could hear what sounded like a combination of a food fight and a barroom brawl. She grimaced, wondering how bad this was really going to be.

"Let's see how well this sharing plan of yours works," Alina spat as she opened the door.

Upon seeing the other side, Violet's question was answered. What went on in the lunchroom could only be described as a maelstrom of violence. There was no food to be found, yet everyone seemed to already be either fighting or trying to break one up. The heroine was startled by how quickly the heroes had degraded into what they were now.

Out of the chaos, a familiar figure stepped forth toward her, still wearing a mask despite his more normal clothing.

"Hello, Violet," he said with a smirk. "Welcome to hell on Earth."

"Thanks. I'll make myself at home. You know, I always knew that if I ended up in Hell, you'd be the one to greet me."

"I'll take that as a compliment," he replied, his grin growing even more pronounced. "This is the lunchroom. Sometimes we eat, sometimes we fight. You never know which one it'll be until she shows up."

"Who?"

"Cara, of course. The queen of chaos herself, monarch of anarchy, whatever you want to call her."

"I think I'll stick with Cara so as not to inflate her already bloated ego," Violet remarked as she noted Cara taking a seat on a high-up platform.

"A wise choice," Syndrome responded just before their dark-haired captor screamed, "QUIET!"

Fights ceased instantly and all eyes were on Cara, who began to speak. "Today is a fighting day. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this tradition, please listen up." As heroes and villains aline started filing into their seats, the woman stared at Violet. Despite what her mind told her to do, she stared right back.

"You are to sit across from your personal nemesis. A scrap of food will be placed between you, and when the bell rings, you may decide what to do with it. I suggest you move quickly, as your nemesis will not care whether or not you starve. Those without a nemesis go hungry."

Violet blinked as Syndrome dragged her to a table far away from Cara where Rita and Alina were already sitting, alongside their nemeses. As Syndrome sat down, a rather small scrap of what appeared to be chicken fell onto a plate between them.

"Let the games begin!" A bell rung, and before her nemesis had even moved, Violet was holding the chicken. Cara smirked from her perch, expecting anything but what Violet was about to do.

Amidst the chaos and fighting over the food that had probably already fallen on the floor or was digesting in someone's stomach, Ultraviolet ripped the scrap of food in half and handed one portion to Syndrome, eating the rest.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked as he took it from her, then practically swallowed it whole.

Violet smirked as Cara's expression contorted into one of the purest rage Violet had ever seen.

"I'm denying Cara her Schadenfreude."


	7. Idea

AN: Thanks for reading. This chapter took a long time to write. It's still not as polished as I'd like it to be, but if I keep it around too much longer it'll get stale. Might as well get it up semi-on time. As I write this, it's eleven on August 31, so I'm not late yet. Hope you enjoy. Fun Fact: This chapter was written using the last pages of my Synlet notebook from the last school year. Still don't own The Incredibles.

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Violet Parr was a mess.

After wrecking Cara's plan for the hero and her nemesis three fighting days in a row, the cyberkinetic had taken Violet in for her first "testing." The Super had soon discovered that it involved seeing how much pain she could endure, her body's reactions to different chemicals, how fast her blood flowed in relation to how deeply she was cut, and how long she could cry until she ran out of tears.

The nervous wreck called Ultraviolet was sitting in the recovery room, her test outfit in absolute shambles. She was crying again, not because of the pain but due to how naive she'd been. She didn't think this kind of thing actually happened, not to her, not to an Incredible. Yet, here she was, sitting on a cold metal table, bawling her eyes out. If this was what being an independent hero was about, she didn't want it. She wanted to go home.

For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating because of Cara's chemicals, but the sound was too firm and sure to be a phantasm. Violet turned toward the source of the noise and saw a female with cherry-red hair and glasses waiting in the doorway. As she walked forward, Violet could see that she had freckles and blue eyes. The heroine wasn't sure what this person was, girl or woman, because though she looked rather developed, she was very short and petite in stature and very well-meaning and childlike in expression. Cara had broken even the most optimistic of heroes with hardly an effort, what chance did anyone else stand? Violet stared at the... thing as it spoke up again.

"Excuse me, miss Violet?" Her voice was polite and dainty, just as she seemed to be. "I hate to be a bother, but would you like your wounds treated?"

Violet didn't know if she could actually speak since she'd screamed her vocal chords out, so she nodded.

A cold hand went on her arm, and as quickly as the touch had come, the pain was gone entirely. The girl started wiping the dried blood off of her arm with a damp cloth while once in a while glancing up at Violet. "Now I see what was meant. I was told that you'd need attention quickly if any semblance of your sanity was to be retained. Cara doesn't usually give mass amounts of tests unless she's angry. Remove your shirt, please."

Violet pulled off her ripped, bloodstained shirt and threw it aside as the thing started to heal some of her larger wounds. "Who told you that?"

"My programmer, of course."

"Your _what_ now?"

"I'm a highly advanced artificial intelligence android, capable of independent thought and running unique personality protocols. Naturally, I have to have a programmer. Since I was designed for healing, I was called Aceso."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Aceso is the Greek goddess for the healing process. My programmer has a 'thing' for Greek mythology."

"Who's your programmer?"

Violet heard the door open, and before the new addition to the room could say a word, she'd already sighed. "You were waiting outside for the most opportune moment to enter, weren't you, Syndrome?"

"But of course. I like to have dramatic entrances. They're more fun."

"Not for the recipient," Violet retorted. "After a while, they get really old."

Syndrome finally made his way into Violet's line of vision. "So, how's it going?"

"How do you think? Look at the situation." Violet stopped for a moment, realizing that the upper half of her body was only clothed in a somewhat-ripped sports bra. "On second thought, don't."

"It's a bit late for that," Syndrome replied, his eyebrows wiggling beneath his mask.

Violet glared at him, but let it go. "I'm not doing very well, obviously. Cara decided to do a bunch of things at once. The only reason I'm sane at all is because of Aceso here."

"I see you're taking full advantage of my technology then." Syndrome grinned.

"If I could smack you right now, I would."

"I'm sure you would. That's why you'll notice I'm keeping a fair distance from the table."

Violet sighed. "Why do you let Cara get away with this? You could easily overpower her."

Syndrome ignored this question in favor of another. "You do know that I'd do all of this just to get to you, right?"

The heroine shrugged. "I guess so. I don't think you are, though. You'd never want someone else to break your nemesis."

"Why wouldn't I? I'd still get to watch."

"That's supposed to be your job, one that only you should get that sick pleasure from. Unfortunately for you, I'm pretty sure Cara's going to break us both pretty quick if we don't start going along with her plans."

"No. That's my right and mine alone, and I'll defend it if it kills... her." Syndrome looked serious for one of the first times since Violet knew he was alive again. "Despite the irony, I think I'm going to have to help you get through this in order to exercise my right to break you on my own terms."

"I don't think that's your only reason for wanting to help me."

"Really. I'd like to know other reasons for helping you."

"If you only wanted to break me, I think you would've taken advantage of Cara's progress, or at least tried to make me depend on you while she hurt me. You have something completely different on the agenda."

"I don't see where you're going with this." Syndrome appeared genuinely puzzled.

"You think I'm attractive, don't you? I've seen the way you look at me, and there's more there than just a casual once-over that a nemesis would give. Heck, I even noticed that little grin you got when you realized I was only wearing a bra on the upper half of my body. You didn't think I noticed, did you?"

"Attraction is not always a two-way street, _Incredigirl,_" he said, giving her an amused smirk as he completely ignored her question. "Just because you think I'm handsome doesn't mean I'm attracted to you."

"Bullcrap," Violet spat. "You did make a good point, though. I'm an Incredible."

"All the more reason for me to hate you."

"All the more reason for you to _fanboy._ You've always wanted a Super, haven't you? And the daughter of your greatest nemesis and biggest hero is just the icing on the cake. It's like a dream come true."

"Don't pretend like you're immune to attraction," the redhead remarked with a smirk. "Ever since you dropped Ol' Garden Hose you've had a thing for guys from the wrong side of the tracks, but you never worked up the courage to talk to one because you were confined to the personality of Violet Parr, Wallflower Extraordinaire. I'm the first one to confront you in costume. I'm the only one who sees the invisible girl."

"You're the only one who wants to see the invisible girl," Violet retorted, and Syndrome rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, sweetheart. I'm going to my room, it's early in the morning. I'll probably be awake if you want to talk. I'm getting the feeling that you do, but I've been wrong before."

"You weren't as wrong as I made it sound." Violet's face turned light pink.

"That's not what I was talking about, but thanks for the info," he replied with a huge grin, knowing he'd just won.

"Oh, you little-"

"I am older, taller, and heavier than you. You have no right to call me little."

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

"Can we stop arguing? I have a headache, my face still stings, and I'm tired."

"Fine." Syndrome looked at her for a moment longer, concern showing through in his expression for a mere second before dissolving into a smug grin once more. Violet noticed the concern and smiled to herself as he walked back toward her, pulling a chair up next to the bed.

"That's creepy, watching me while I sleep."

"I'm a villain. It comes with the territory." Syndrome grinned. "Besides, it's not like it's the first time I've done it."

"Creep."

"Weakling."

"I'm going to sleep."

"Sweet dreams."

Violet fell asleep for a while, and when she woke, Syndrome had gone missing. She had no idea that a full-out war was being waged between the two major sides of his personality about whether to admit to himself that he liked her or not. He still wasn't sure what he'd sided with when she entered.

"So, you decided to show up."

"I noticed you weren't there. It actually kind of bothered me."

Syndrome grinned. "It bothered you that I wasn't there?"

"I was in close proximity to Cara. Sleeping anywhere near Cara without protection makes me nervous."

"I guess that's plausible."

The door opened out of seemingly nowhere as Violet sat on the bed and Syndrome moved himself to a standing position near the foot of his bed. On the other side were two females that Violet was unfamiliar with. One was much shorter than the other, her high brown ponytail not giving her much against the tan girl's height. Both had oddly colored eyes, the brunette's being bright red and the taller girl's black hair and contrasting fang-like white bangs framing her bright yellow, narrow pupilled eyes. The two seemed to be opposites physically, but their mental similarity had yet to be seen.

"This is most certainly a fascinating development," the brunette said, stepping forward. "We'd just come to see if the rumors were true, and here you are."

"What rumors?"

"You haven't heard?" The tall one scoffed. "She hasn't even been here a week and people are already saying you two are going out."

"Why?"

"The rumor mill is generally a processor of lies and pain," the short girl commented, but the black-haired one interrupted her.

"Well, you're opposite-gendered nemeses, and the whole obsession thing with her dad doesn't help your case at all, Syndie."

"What about me? Why would I like him?" Violet frowned as Syndrome rolled his eyes.

"People tend to think you're either co-dependent and weak, which doesn't make much sense; or independent and invincible or something and you're into bad guys. I think they've got a few letters mixed up in invincible, but whatever."

"So, uh..." Violet gulped, obviously nervous at the thought of being in the same room as three villains at once. "Why are you... you already answered that. Can you leave now?"

The brunette smirked. "You seem awfully eager to get us away from here. Might I query what you will be doing after we exit?"

Violet didn't get the chance to answer, however, as Syndrome went up to face the pair instead.

"Enigma." He looked down at the shorter one, glaring at her, then turned to the tall one and stated "Draconia." The duo stared back for a moment before he spoke again, a severe threat underlying his short statement.

"Get. Out."

The villains didn't need to be told twice, and the door was shut in a few seconds.

"Wow. You're pretty influential, aren't you?"

"Of course I am," he said, staring at the door. "I brought in a new age, survived an encounter with the famed Incredibles, went through a jet turbine and lived to tell about it, retained billionaire status _after_ having my assets frozen, wrote the Villain Code, and gained more global power and influence through destruction than anyone since the Joker. I'd say I'm pretty amazing."

Violet rolled her eyes. "Wow, bloated ego much? Did you ever have any sidekicks or-"

"Nope," he replied in a quick, forceful tone.

"What, am I poking a wound?"

"Do you want me to start poking yours?" His voice started to sound dangerous, but Violet continued.

"Poke away. I can handle it, unlike you. I'm not an unstable volcano waiting to explode."

Continuing to face away from her, Syndrome frowned and held his clasped hands up near his chin as he leaned on the bed. "You have to answer truthfully."

"Not a problem."

"What really happened to Tony?"

Violet sighed. "He didn't like me underneath the pink, which is okay because he was a backstabbing jerk. Not one like you, oh no, he was worse because I couldn't fight him, couldn't take it out on him or get him arrested for cheating on me! After that, I finally understood why you didn't go with Mirage again after we left. She cheated on you! I just... I want to punch her, even though she helped us! I-"

Syndrome had apparently turned around at some point and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Listen, Violet. This is me, the unstable genocidal maniac, telling you that you're getting too worked up about this. Tony's in the past, you seemed well-adjusted to it when we met. Please calm down. This is kind of scaring me."

Violet took a few deep breaths to regain her composure. "Sorry. Just haven't had time to rant about that for a while. I get that reaction to it from my mom, I think."

The villain smirked, but the cocky grin quickly faded as he seemed to realize something.

"What's wrong?"

"What are you doing to me?" Syndrome turned away again, gripping his bedpost as if it were his lifeline.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a big, bad villain. I'm not supposed to feel. I felt dead most of these years, like I was supposed to be. And then YOU came along."

"Are you about to ask what I think you're going to ask?"

"No."

Violet blinked. "What are you going to ask, then?"

"I'm going to ask if that's a good enough excuse. If we're pretending to date, it'll make Cara mad and give us some time to make plans to escape. That's going to be why I'm dating you. Does it sound like a good explanation?" He'd turned around again, a smirk on his face as usual.

"Oh... yeah. You had me going there for a minute." Violet laughed. "Yeah, I'd love to use that as an excuse. The faster we escape, the better."

Syndrome grinned even wider. "I couldn't have said it better myself. Glad you like the idea."


	8. Gemini

AN: Thanks again for reading. Lots of alerts this month. I almost typed "weasel" instead of "easily" several times. I doubt that there'll be an update next month due to NaNoWriMo, and I didn't think there would be one this month either. You've got the creative genius behind When The Day Met The Night to thank for that one. This one was longer on paper than most of the previous chapters. I don't know how much I'm cutting from it, though. I haven't been able to write for the longest time, and I'm glad that I can, but it frustrates me that I seem to be carrying the entire Synlet fandom on my shoulders.

Still don't own The Incredibles.

There's about a two-week long timeskip between the last chapter and this one.

* * *

"So."

Alina's voice carried to the people around her despite the dull roar of the lunchroom. Violet had heard bits and pieces concerning her "relationship" with her nemesis, but nothing substantial. The man across from her, her co-star in this act, was chewing some of the overcooked pork they'd all been given. _Even his chewing is convincing_, Violet thought as her mind wandered, then took a moment to wonder what the heck that meant.

Alina's failed attempt at breaking the awkward silence blanketing the table went unnoticed. Her fellow hero, Rita, was staring off at another table. Enigma was folding her napkin into what appeared to be an origami crane, Draconia was messing with her fork, Violet was staring at Syndrome (though that was to be expected), and Syndrome seemed too fixated on picking at the pile of corn on his plate to notice anything. This was easily the most boring lunch Alina had ever experienced, right down to the mediocre food.

In her utter frustration at going unnoticed, the New Yorker put her fingers under the lip of her plate and flipped it over, making a loud clatter and spraying food all over her end of the table. The other five turned to look at her, surprised by this seemingly random display of anger.

"Have we all completely lost sight of our objectives? This place is boring and painful, and you're all too wrapped up in your own boring worlds to care! Especially YOU!" Alina pointed at Violet, giving her a death glare. "You're the one who suggested we escape in the first place! Now you seem perfectly satisfied just sitting around staring at a certain _someone_ instead of taking any initiative! I'm sick of this place!"

The climax of Alina's speech came as Cara approached their table, distracted from her casual stroll between the tables. By the time she'd arrived, Alina had picked up the dirty plate.

"Psyche-"

Before Cara could get another word out, Alina smashed her plate over Cara's head and ran for her life.

For a moment, the woman just stood there blinking, but by the time she was aware of her surroundings again the entire area had been vacated.

"Everyone at Psyche's table had better get their asses back here, or when I find you, you'll wish you'd never been born! Do I make myself clear?" Cara screamed, pulling out a syringe.

To Cara's surprise, Violet was the first to emerge. "Don't go after her. Hurt me instead. I can take it."

"Oh, well if it isn't Little Miss Altruism. I'd really love to test you again, but that's not how things work around here." The woman in the jacket kicked Violet squarely in the chest, pushing her onto the ground. "Somebody pick a number. Go on, don't be shy."

"One," called out an all-too-familiar voice belonging to a redhead immersed in the crowd.

"Oh, you little-!" Cara screamed, pointing the needle in the general direction of the voice before sticking it into her shoulder haphazardly. "Next time I'll ask for one between _two_ and seventy-four-"

Before Cara could finish her irritated statement, she was on the floor screaming from the intense pain of her own chemicals. Violet took the opportunity to walk over to Syndrome, who was wearing a satisfied smirk.

"Why did she do that?"

"She's insane," he replied with a shrug. "That's all the justification she needs for it. Come on."

The two walked out of the lunchroom, filing through the doors just like all the other heroes and villains. They stayed completely silent, Violet making sure not to lose Syndrome in the crowd, ignoring the people shoving into them for no reason whatsoever. The two ended up outside of an atypical door, one that was steel instead of faux wood. The inventor opened the door for Violet and gestured inside. "Go ahead and take a seat wherever you want."

Violet walked inside and took in some of the sights of his room. It was simple enough, consisting mostly of a bed, a bookcase, and a few drawers, with a hallway near the bed that probably led to a bathroom or something to that effect. Syndrome followed her in and shut the door.

"So why did she jab herself again?"

"That's how her punishments work," Syndrome replied, lying down on his bed as she leaned against the dresser. "She punishes a 'random' person, but if you know which number belongs to which person, you can make them get punished for what you did."

"That's stupid."

"I didn't say it was smart. I just said that's the way she does it."

Violet frowned. "So if you did something horrible, you could get me punished for it."

"Yep."

"Would you?"

"I don't know, maybe if I'm feeling sadistic or you're being less than nice to me or something." The villain smirked.

"What's your number?"

"I already gave it to you, and it won't do you much good right now since we're talking in person, but thanks for asking." He broke into a full-out grin.

Violet rolled her eyes with a smile. "I meant your one-through-seventy-four number, smart one."

"Three."

"Who's two?"

"Charlie."

"There are no other guards here?"

"Why would she need them?"

"I don't know," Violet responded, tugging at the hem of her bland grey tank top. Cara had issued uniforms some time ago, but as usual Syndrome seemed completely exempt from her rules. Rather than the grey tee shirt he would've had to wear if he were any other male, he instead donned a long-sleeved white button up; and the uniform grey-blue pants weren't grey or blue or any combination of the two. They just so happened to be black. "Why aren't you wearing the uniform?"

"She's afraid of me."

"Why would she be afraid of you? Isn't it the other way around?"

"To some degree, but I also have a secret weapon that she can't access, and it's impossible for her to find it physically. I could show you, if you want."

"What if she tortures the location out of me?"

"She can't get in anyway. It's impossible for her to find the entrance when it looks like a wall- one that isn't susceptible to her cyberkinesis."

"I guess so."

The villain sat up and got off his bed, opening the door and gesturing at Violet. "Ladies first."

"Doesn't that mean you should go, then?" Violet said with a playful smirk.

"Oh, ha, very funny, Incredigirl. Insulting my masculinity is always good for a laugh." He rolled his eyes.

"Just like your repeated use of Incredigirl to make me seem like a child?" she retorted, walking through the door.

"Yes, but mine is funnier because it's a running joke," he responded, shutting the door behind him and walking in front of her with his characteristic strut.

"Do you really walk like that all the time, or only when you're feeling superior?"

"Feeling superior? I _am _superior."

"Does your ego's size double overnight every night?"

"What's it to you? What my ego does on its own time is its business, not yours."

"You're such a dork."

"That's such a stupid insult. Where did you find that one? Lying in the halls of your school after it had been thrown at a nerd?"

"I haven't been in high school for three years, oh superior one."

"Well, at least you have the sense to call me by my proper name. Oh, we're here."

"Already?"

"Why would I want to have my secret lab far from my room?" he asked with his ubiquitous smirk, tapping a few spots on the wall. The wall hadn't seemed to be any different from what surrounded it until it opened up, revealing a gaping hole.

"Aren't you worried that Cara could still open it? All she'd have to do is whack it a few times."

"It reads my heat signature. It'd change the controls if it wasn't what it was supposed to be, and she'd have a hard time getting to the main console without me anyway. It would read if I was panicked, too, and it would shoot her down."

"What if she made you calm down first?"

"She'd never think of that."

Violet stared into the inky blackness. "So are we going in or not?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Are you kidding? I've never been in there. It could be like walking into a deathtrap! You go in first."

"Fine, scaredy-cat." Syndrome grinned and stepped into the darkness, tailed closely by Violet. The clanking of metal echoed through her ears as the light behind them disappeared, and the mesh-like walkway made her a little paranoid. "When do we get to a lightswitch?"

"We don't. This is to fool Cara and make her think it's more dangerous than it is," Syndrome remarked in a smug tone. "I"ll turn on the lights when we get to a certain point."

The two walked for a while, a glowing green color in the distance catching Violet's attention. Soon, they were close enough to see it clearly, and before Violet knew it, they were directly in front of it.

"It" was a large console topped by a cylinder filled with an eerie green liquid. In the glowing liquid was what appeared to be a blonde human female, fully clothed.

"Genetic tampering. Wonderful," Violet groaned, staring at the tank that looked like it had been taken straight from a sci-fi movie.

"Oh, so it fooled you." Syndrome grinned.

"What?"

"The liquid is a hologram, it's actually an antigravity field. She's not a human. She's an android. If Cara doesn't know she's not human, she doesn't know she can control her until it's too late and her powers don't work anymore."

"Her powers... stop working?"

"Genesis here can make it happen."

"You made an android just for that?"

"Hey, she can do other stuff too..."

"Please don't tell me that you made her for some sort of sick entertainment-"

"No!" he snapped. "She can manipulate life force to some extent, hence the name. I wouldn't make a robot for THAT. Lights on."

At his command, all the lights turned on to reveal a large white room. "I modeled it to feel like my old computer room. It's smaller though, not as deep."

"I can see that," Violet replied, noticing that the walkway below her didn't plunge down into an abyss as her father had described. In fact, they were only about a foot off the ground. "So if Cara comes in or you're panicked. What happens?"

"The 'activate' button turns to 'destroy', so if she hits destroy, it'll launch Genesis through a hole in the bottom to be activated. Also, all the little buttons stop working and instead become a game. You know that one with the lights you have to press in the right order? It starts doing that on a huge scale. If she loses, it beeps at her with that ominous explosion countdown beeping. It's pretty funny, actually."

"What if she doesn't fall for it?"

"She's really not all that smart, Violet," he said, staring at Genesis. "She's pretty much just good with chemistry and anatomy. It's all she needed."

"She seemed pretty smart to me."

"Cunning and clever are not the same as smart." The villain frowned. "Come on. We should go. She might get suspicious."

"Shouldn't she already be?"

"She SHOULD be, but I don't know if she is." The villain stuck his hands in his pockets and headed toward the exit. Violet, however, stayed where she was.

"You coming?"

"You never told me why you changed your costume."

Syndrome stared at her for a while before fidgeting with his silver gauntlets. "The story behind it isn't really all that interesting."

"That doesn't make me any less curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"But satisfaction brought it back."

The villain glared at her. "I don't really-"

"Just tell me."

"Well, think about it for a minute. You heroes see everything as black and white, right and wrong. I thought I was doing people a favor for a while. I really did." Syndrome paused, sighing. "Then I found out I was on the wrong side of the morality line. You're not as super as you think you are. It's always been charcoal grey and silver. You've killed people, I've saved lives. There's no such thing as black and white. There never was. There never will be."

Violet opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. The girl walked toward the door in silence, and Syndrome followed suit. The door slid open as she walked and shut after her nemesis, leaving a clean wall as though nothing had ever been there.

"We need to talk."

"We just did."

"I mean about... other things."

"What-"

"Hey there, lovebirds!" Cara exclaimed, walking down the hallway. "Where have you two been?"

The pair stared at the woman, shocked. "How did she get here so fast?" Violet inquired quietly as she approached. Syndrome shook his head a little, then announced his response to Cara. "Around."

"Really? It didn't look like that on the cameras. They told me that you two went into-get this-a hole in the wall behind you. The cameras don't lie, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes-Of-The-Year."

Violet bit her lip. "We were just talking."

"Oh, I'm sure, talking about how to escape no doubt. Well, joke's on you, Incredigirl."

"What?"

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough." Cara pulled out a syringe. "If you come willingly, this won't be as painful. I promise."

"How do I know you won't break it?"

"That's the beautiful part!" Cara said, cackling. "Even I don't know whether or not I'm lying!"

Violet took a few steps back, intending to turn tail, but she was quickly restrained by Syndrome. One of his arms was shaking a little, though Violet couldn't tell whether it was really man or machine holding her back.

"I"m sorry," he whispered into the hero's ear as Cara stuck the needle under her skin. The last thing she felt was the inventor's warm cheek against hers before she lost consciousness.

"You love her, don't you?"

Syndrome gave Cara an odd look.

"Oh, I know you're faking the relationship. But you actually like her, and this is the only way to-"

Syndrome pushed the limp hero at Cara, who only just managed to catch her. "She's a pawn. A piece in my plans. I want to make her love me so she'll cooperate better. I hold no feelings for her."

"Your plans are ones to escape, I assume?"

"No," he said coldly, staring at Violet. "My plans are for revenge. My only intent is to break her."

"I can't say as I believe you, but I see no reason to press further. You should get some rest." Cara started to drag Violet down the hall.

"What are you going to do?"

"Screw up all of your plans, of course. You're MY pawn, remember? Now go to bed."

"It's four in the afternoon."

"Oh, trust me, Syndie." The villain gritted his teeth at the nickname while Cara chuckled. "You're going to need it."

As Syndrome headed toward his room, he frowned. He was going to have to modify some plans, namely the one involving Gemini.


	9. Hit The Floor

AN: Holy crap. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Well, I had no school the day I started typing this up so I kicked myself in the proverbial butt for procrastinating and getting distracted by NaNo and the novel that followed. And then I tried to write it again and got stuck. And so it went for a few months. This chapter isn't very good, and it has a lot of "he said, she said" in it. But it'll get better. This was a big hitch chapter. I plan on finishing this out, since we're over halfway done here. Wish me luck, you guys. I'm gonna need it.

STILL don't own the Incredibles, but if Alpha Omega goes really big and I buy the rights to it then I will and Synlet will become canon and the world will cringe in terror. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

...ahem.

* * *

Birds were chirping along to their own personal melody. There were no mosquitoes to be found, and everything seemed to be in proper order on this day, except for the fact that everything had gone horribly wrong in the life of Violet Parr. As it was, our hero was sitting on a beach with her pant legs up and letting the waves lap around her ankles, looking back on how she had gotten to where she was and why she was there.

Her torture had been somewhat expected and almost contrived, stereotypical. It was a new concept while being around Cara, but in its own way, in being expected it was unexpected. Typical was different, and yet Violet was not surprised.

After about an hour of unfathomable pain, which she had seen coming and had braced herself for, she induced a little torture onto herself for who knows what reason in asking why Syndrome had held her for Cara, why he had apologized. Cara had, of course, given a logical yet infuriating and depressing response.

"He's working for me," she'd said nonchalantly, as though betrayal was no big deal. "He always has been. He's been toying with you this whole time, and let me tell you, it's been hilarious. He's starting to feel a little guilty about it since you're so young, but hey, he knew what he was getting into, and you ARE the daughter of his greatest enemy after all, so he's still going through with all our plans." Cara had grinned, but her happiness faltered when Violet's expression turned into one of pure rage. While Cara was not an easily scared woman, she was still fully aware of the fact that Violet's adrenaline would overpower anything she tried to do, which wouldn't end well at all for her. Cara's panic forced Violet's power suppressors to deactivate, and before you could say "Incredigirl" Cara had been hit with what felt like a sack of bricks before losing consciousness.

Now, the Incredible had escaped the base (since Charlie had been the only guard and was obviously not present in the area, or he'd decided not to go after her for whatever reason) and after a long bout of crying and a longer one of kicking everything in sight, she was finally relaxing and thinking things through. She dug her toes into the sand, leaned back, and stared at the sky, the ever-puffy clouds drifting through her field of vision.

"Okay," she muttered to herself. "Cara could be right, because Syndrome's a backstabbing jerk. But she could've lied. Why didn't I think of that? It's so simple." She paused, picking up a seashell with her toes and tossing it out into the water. "And yet it's not. He wouldn't think twice about betraying me because I'm an Incredible. Maybe he wanted a dramatic culmination and Cara ruined it. I can see that happening. But I can also see her saying that to turn me against him... ugh." She let herself fall in the sand. "I can't keep doing this. I need to make a decision one way or the other."

But the eldest Parr didn't decide. She stared upward, watching the clouds continue to roll across the sky. She could have sat there forever if her conscience hadn't been screaming at her the entire time.

After a while, she sat up and cautiously took off the dog tag hanging around her neck. There was no shock, which was just fine with her. As she held it, trying to decide whether to keep it or toss it into the ocean, she felt a slight tingle under her thumb.

"Match: Ultraviolet," a familiar computerized voice said in the island's sudden silence. "Commence audio streaming." Violet wasn't entirely sure what that meant until it started happening.

Everything was slightly digitized and static, but that was to be expected. The first sound that came from it was a shriek that Violet recognized instantly. Cara had been torturing Alina after all. There was also a loud background noise of a male breathing heavily, probably someone close to the audio recording device.

"So. Had enough yet, Psyche? I hope not. This is fun to watch. But I'd also like to move on to your friends, too." The person near the recorder coughed.

"So I'll ask you one more time. Where. Is. Ultraviolet?"

Apparently Alina shook her head, as the shock noise came before a voice did. There was another cough, then silence once the screams died out. Cara, of course, broke it quickly.

"Well, based on my calculations, this is about the amount of pain you can take before breaking down, so I'll move on to Syndie here." The breathing hitched.

Cara's footsteps echoed as Violet bit her lip. The one close to the speaker couldn't be...

"Where's your girlfriend, Buddy?"

"That's not my name," he spat, his voice coming in louder and clearer than any of the other voices. This, of course, was not the answer Cara wanted, and he received what sounded like a shock for it.

"Don't avoid the question. Where's your girlfriend?"

There was another shock sound, as apparently he hadn't answered.

"Where's your GIRLFRIEND?" Cara screeched.

"She's not my girlfriend."

Violet bit her lip. That shouldn't have hurt.

"Oh, yeah. Remind us all why she's not your girlfriend, why don't you?"

"Because of you," he spat with a contempt Violet thought he had reserved for her father.

"Oh, so now it's MY fault. Well, guess what, Syndie? I wasn't the one who decided to betray her."

"If I hadn't, you would've killed me."

"Maybe, but wasn't her life worth more than yours?"

There was a short pause. Violet could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

"Yes, but we had to wait for the opportune moment. I had to become a scapegoat so you'd be distracted, and that takes time."

"What?" Cara sounded perplexed.

"We planned all this. You had no idea what we were plotting. Your precious cameras can't record everything!" He laughed hoarsely.

"LIAR!" Cara screamed, turning on the electricity. "If you planned all this, you wouldn't have cried for her. You wouldn't!"

"I'm good at acting, Cara. You know that." His voice was getting weaker.

"Then why are you telling me all of this now? It'll ruin your precious plans-"

"No, it won't. She's coming here, right now as I speak. And no matter where you go or what you do to us, she's still going to find you, Cara. You can't run from an Incredible."

"The tag. She's still got the tag."

"She's not stupid enough to leave it on, Cara. You can't control her anymore. Now we're just sitting around waiting for her to come save me. Us."

"RRRAGH!" Cara screamed, her rage obvious. "You're going to pay for this. You're ALL going to pay, right now. Psyche, Sonicwave, Enigma, Draconia, Syndrome, and even YOU, you stupid little robot thing!" Violet assumed she was pointing at Aceso. "YOU'RE ALL GONNA PAY!" The electricity went on and the audio died, leaving Violet with a quick decision to make. On one hand, it could've been a pre-recorded message with acting designed to lure her back, but on the other hand- aw, forget it, even if she didn't want to she was going to go back to save him, wasn't she?

Her legs, which had started moving toward the base several seconds prior, answered that question for her.

With no defenses for the island, getting back to where she'd escaped from was abnormally easy. She'd only needed a light sprint and a little bit of gliding (aided by her forcefields) to get to the nearest entrance at the base of the volcano. After that, it was only a hop, skip, and a jog until she heard Cara's voice.

"You just don't know when to give up, do you? Well, face the facts, Buddy. You're gonna die, and she's never coming back to save you. She practically hates you now. And with good reason! You're just asking for death."

Syndrome's response was too quiet for Violet to hear, but apparently Cara thought it was funny, as she let out a barking laugh. "Oh, that's rich. Richer than... a double chocolate cake donut, or whatever she always says-"

That was the final straw. With that last statement, Violet rushed into the room and smacked Cara in the back of the head with a forcefield, knocking her to the ground.

"The donut similes are MY thing," she announced over Cara's fallen body, then walked over to the control panel and released all of the captives from their holds, dropping them to the floor. Alina laughed from her position on the ground.

"Never thought a stupid donut comparison would save my life," she said, her voice cracking. Violet smiled and walked over to her nemesis. "You okay?" she asked.

"Do I look okay?" he groaned, attempting to stand. Violet held out her hand, but he shook his head.

"No. I don't deserve it."

"Just take it."

"No!" he growled, falling to the ground.

"Pride is a deadly sin, you know."

"Oh, I'm fully aware of that. That doesn't make me less likely to be proud. After all, hubris is my middle name."

"Buddy Hubris Pine? That's a terrible name. Someone should punish your parents." Violet snickered as her nemesis finally managed to stand.

"Ha, ha. Very funny. Well, I-" Syndrome looked around. "Why are you all staring at us?"

"You're dating," Draconia reminded them. "She just saved your life. Show her a little love. Jeez, do I have to spell everything out for you?"

"Oh, yeah." The male villain coughed. "Well, this is awkward. I mean, we can't just randomly start eating face in front of all of these people." He pointed at Cara. "Especially while she's still... you know, alive."

"Hey, you're the one that killed people, not me," Violet protested, her hands going up in defense. "That's not my territory."

Syndrome's first response was to wiggle his hands in her general direction. "Well I can't do anything with these, either. My zero-point gauntlets are fried from the electricity. And I can't say as the mechanical limbs are doing too hot, either."

"Really? I couldn't tell. The jazz hands threw me off."

The villain rolled his eyes. "They're not jazz hands. I was just demonstrating-"

Violet rushed behind Syndrome, whacking Cara on the head again with a force field. "She was starting to get up. We really need to do something about her."

Draconia grinned. "We could always eat her."

"That's disgusting! Why- Eewwwwww!" Violet covered her mouth.

"Hey, if you didn't want a bad answer you shouldn't have asked a bad person."

"We could always lock her up in one of her own machines," Enigma commented. "A taste of her own medicine, so to speak."

"Or we could give her a literal taste of her own medicine." Syndrome grinned. "Besides, the machines are mine. She just stole them. She'd be able to control them, too, so it wouldn't do what we told it to. It'd probably turn on us."

"Would you guys quit it? This is just- augh!" Violet stormed over to Cara. "We're not torturing her and we're not eating her and if someone's going to kill her it won't be me. We can... tie her up or something."

Syndrome rolled his eyes. "And then she'll get a computer to cut the ropes. We'll have the exact same problem we do now, only with her being conscious. Which, as you may already know, is obviously worse."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that one out." She stared at the limp body on the floor. "What if I killed her or something?"

"Then we don't have to worry about what to do with her when she wakes up! That's one of the greatest conveniences about killing people. You don't have to freak out about what's going to happen when they finally do get up, because they won't."

"So much for a heroic rescue," Violet grumbled. "I save everybody and then we start bickering about how to take care of the villain. I thought these were supposed to be unanimous or something?"

"Since when has it ever been unanimous? Except maybe with your family, since you all seem to share a brain," Syndrome retorted. "Nobody-" He never finished his sentence, however, as Violet had punched him in the jaw.

"Wow. I thought you two were dating! I never knew this was such an abusive relationship." Draconia laughed for a very short time before Violet glared at her. "Shut up."

Syndrome did not seem pleased at having been hit. "I was _kidding, _Incredigirl. Can't you take a joke?"

"Not when it's a thinly veiled attack on my family, whom you hate and make many thinly veiled attacks on... if you bother to pretend they're not attacks at all."

"True. But you didn't have to punch me."

"That tends to be the only way you'll shut up."

"Hey, lovebirds," Alina called out. "Cara's coming to. Maybe you should start paying attention-"

Before the hero could finish, however, Cara had sprung to her feet and bolted out of the room, the squeak of her high-top sneakers still echoing in the room.

"Great. That's just GREAT. Now we're going to have to find her." Alina rolled her eyes.

Syndrome looked up at the ceiling. "Actually, I don't think that's top priority right this second. I really think we should get out of this room. Immediately."

"What for? It's got all her chemicals in it. We could take some of her stuff-"

"Because we're all about to be unconscious!" he interrupted, his agitated mood rather apparent. "She's putting some sort of gas through the vents."

"There are vents in here?"

"Yes!" Syndrome exclaimed. "Obviously! Otherwise we would have nothing to worry about!"

"I think you're just being paranoid," Rita said, finally speaking up. "I don't smell or taste anything in the air."

"Neither do I, and I'm good at tasting." Draconia rolled her eyes. "He's overreacting. He does that a lot."

That was the last thing Violet heard before she hit the floor.


	10. Proud

AN: 226 readers back in April when I last updated this story. You guys are amazing. Thank you. Sorry this chapter is so short and it's taken so long.

I don't own The Incredibles, but all the OCs are mine. You can use them if you ask.

* * *

"Hey, Incredibrat. Wake up."

Cara's voice had been the last one Violet had wanted to wake up to, but apparently she didn't have a choice. She lifted her head groggily to find the black-haired woman grinning at her.

"Having fun? That little stunt of yours earlier really hurt, you know. It'll cost you. But, seeing as you're Little Miss Altruism, I guess hurting him would be more painful, wouldn't it?"

Violet glanced over to her left to find that her nemesis was hooked up to the very same machine. He appeared to have been conscious for a while, though.

"Seems familiar, doesn't it?" he mumbled. "Except instead of your family, you have me here. And I'm probably less helpful."

"Oh, much less, of course." Cara giggled, nodding at Syndrome. With the slight movement, the limbs Violet presumed to be mechanical started to shake violently.

"Stop it!" the Incredible shouted.

"And what will you do if I don't?" Cara sneered. "You're just as trapped as he is." To demonstrate this, a jolt of electricity ran through Violet's body, making her body have a spasm for a few seconds with the sudden pain and disruption. "Face facts, Incredigirl. You're going to die here. Your friends are going to die here. Syndie is going to die here and maybe, eventually, your family will die here too."

With the mention of her family being killed, Violet's usually controlled powers burst to life with a fervor they'd never had to see before. Whether or not there was another way to be rid of Cara was suddenly irrelevant. She would have no more of this. Whether it was against the code or not, for the sake of everyone, this villain was one that could not be saved. Cara's life had to be ended. While there was good reasoning toward it (she'd break out of prison anyway, nothing can ever hold her, she'll do the same thing if we don't stop her, do you REALIZE how many lives are being lost? will be lost?) much of her abrupt, brief, and specific change of heart was given strength by pure fury.

Violet's sudden rage caught Cara off guard, her anger-induced forcefields popping all around the room and bursting test tubes and syringes alike. A few computers fizzled and died, the pressure on their circuit boards enough to snap them. Yet the bonds remained strong, and Violet was just as trapped as she was before.

"What the hell was that?" the villain mused, walking over to her desk and examining the spilled chemicals, some of which had mixed and were starting to melt a hole in the table. "Was that your trump card? Ha. Let me show you a real display of power!" She whirled around, fingertips sparking, when suddenly the energy died.

"Is this another one of your tricks, _Buddy?_" Cara spat, clearly seething. "I'll turn up the electricity if-"

"You can't." He smirked. "Your powers are gone. At least for now."

"What?" she shrieked. "That's impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible."

As if on cue, the door swung open to reveal the girl Violet had formerly seen in "stasis." Cara whirled around to face the android, glaring at the newcomer with a blonde ponytail and a death glare.

"Is this it? You brought in a new hero to save you?"

"You could say that." The villain smirked.

"Does everything you create have to enter at the most on-cue moment by law?" Violet whispered to her nemesis as Cara sized up Genesis.

"Hey, if I'm planning for a deus ex machina, I want it to be dramatic. I don't want it to be all like, oh, I'm in danger, but suddenly I'm saved. There has to be some climactic buildup. Things have to happen on cue. I'm almost certain we probably could've gotten out without her, since you've done this sort of thing before, but it just makes things so much easier."

"You're such a dork." Violet rolled her eyes and made an elliptical forcefield around the two, disconnecting them both from the electric prison before Cara noticed what was going on.

Distracted as she was, Cara still figured out she was surrounded with relative quickness and glanced around. "So I guess this is the part where you think you have me cornered. Well, you'll have to catch me first!" With a cackle, she dashed out the door and slammed it behind her.

"Are we going to chase her?" Violet asked just after thanking Genesis for helping them and pressing the button to release their unreasonably heavy bonds.

"You go on ahead." Syndrome was on his knees, clutching his side. "I can't fight her like this anyway."

"What-" Violet stopped cold as he moved his hand. A light red tinge was starting to seep through the silver portions of his costume. "What did she do to you?"

"I'll live! Just go!"

"Not until I know you're going to be okay!"

"It was just a slice from before you woke up. I'm more likely to be in danger if you don't tail her, _now._ So please, just go. Oh, and if you go the same way she did, open up the drawer with Gemini on it, would you?"

Violet bit her lip, then left Syndrome with his creations and bolted after Cara.

The room she was in now was nothing like the room previous. It was cramped, cold, and tidy, with an unsettling precision that chilled Violet to the bone. What seemed to be large filing cabinets lined the walls, each one labeled with a name and three numbers. In particular, one set stood out to her, glaring at her in red ink on white lined notecard.

Gemini. 11.16.10.

It occurred to Violet at this moment that she was staring at what was probably that Super's resting place. And Syndrome was asking her to violate that? She didn't want to dishonor Gemini any more than Cara already had, and besides, looking at people who had passed creeped her out. Yet a combination of trust for her nemesis and overwhelmingly morbid curiosity made her open it anyway.

There was no body there at all, simply a mess of metal and circuitry. A small slip of paper clarified what this was about, written in Syndrome's handwriting.

_I have more respect for the dead than you think. I made sure Charlie gave her a proper burial, just as he's done with all the rest of them. He's pretty great, but I digress. I kept a few projects in here that Cara didn't know about. None of them are particularly refined, and most of them have exposed wires, but you should be able to use all of them safely. All of them should be able to stop her in her tracks, one way or another. Some are more violent than others. You'd best pick your poison before Cara does it for you. _Violet frowned, then pushed the drawer shut. She was an Incredible, she could- no.

She was Ultraviolet, and she could handle villains on her own, without any fancy gadgetry or brothers on the sidelines. She had her wits, she had her powers, and she had circumstance. And if she'd asked her father, he would've told her that was all she needed.

Ultraviolet crumpled up the paper, dropped it in the nearest trash can, and went through the next door.

"I see you took your sweet time chasing me down," Cara retorted, her back turned as she mixed up something into a new syringe. "I thought you were more prompt about this sort of thing."

"You tortured my friends," Ultraviolet stated flatly, ignoring Cara's insult. The villain turned in shock while the hero continued to approach her.

"You did unspeakable damage to a man I've come to fall in love with, before AND after I fell for him."

"So you and Syndie WERE-"

"SHUT UP!" she demanded, and Cara went silent. "But most of all, you threatened to kill my family." With a gleaming, bitter hatred shining through in her expression, Ultraviolet grabbed one of the needles on the table.

"I don't know what's in this syringe. But no matter how painful, no matter how torturous it is, you deserve it and more for how many people you've killed. How many lives you've ruined, and how many people have suffered at your hand alone."

Cara smirked coolly. "You're Miss I Can't Kill Anybody. You wouldn't-"

Before the villain could finish, Ultraviolet had injected the entirety of the needle into Cara's bloodstream, and didn't back down when the other girl began to twitch and grin maniacally.

"So this is what it feels like," Cara said, an eerie smile on her face. "I had no idea the pain was this... fire-like. Like lava through my veins!" She let out an odd sound that sounded like a strangled combination of a laugh and a pained scream.

"And it's so much more intense! Then again, I've never been injected with four times the lethal dosage, so I suppose...!" Her squeaky shriek-cackling got louder and louder, until it reached its fever pitch and the girl collapsed on the ground, her spasmodic flailing becoming suddenly violent. Ultraviolet watched as the seizing slowed down, then reached a complete halt at the same time the laughing died out. Cara's breathing stopped, and her face was frozen with its lethal grin and cold, dead eyes.

It was finally over. Her foe was vanquished. No one else would have to suffer because of Cara, ever. She had taken down a villain with little more than aid on Genesis' (and by default Syndrome's) behalf and a handful of emotions packed tightly into a monologue. This was what she was meant to do, and she had just proven that she could do it just as well as anybody else.

Her father would have been proud.


End file.
